Museum accessions

Magazine Antiques, June, 2003 by Eleanor H. Gustafson

The cut-glass and ormolu fantasy illustrated at right once rose in the center of a surrounding field of cakes and puddings on an eighteenth-century dessert table. It too was heaped with candied fruits, nuts, crystallized edible flowers, and, in the topmost cup, a preserved orange, then an extravagant treat. In wavering candlelight this lofty tribute to the sweet tooth would have twinkled and winked as seductively as the Sirens.

Born of English parents in Long Island, New York, George Washington Henry Jack was trained by the Glasgow architect Horatio K. Bromhead. But his greater talents lay elsewhere, and by 1890 he was the chief furniture designer for Morris and Company in England. Among his most extraordinary designs is the inlaid secretaire cabinet illustrated below, one of only six examples known and a visual tour de force of artistic cabinetry. The earliest record of such a cabinet appeared in The Cabinet Maker and Art Furnisher in 1889, in a rendering of an example shown at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in London in that year. The design was still available from Morris and Company in 1912, priced at ninety-eight guineas, making it one of the most expensive cabinets offered by the firm. The example illustrated is believed to have been made for William Knox D'Arcy, whose fortune was made in Australian gold mining and whose house, Stanmore Hall in Middlesex, England, was decorated by Morris and Company over a number of ye ars around 1890.

The lead glass stand was made in England about 1760 with all the craftsmanship such a luxurious object deserved. Each of the eight arms terminates in a gilt-metal sleeve that fits into a gilt-metal cup on the central collar. Notches on sleeve and cup must match because each arm is destined for a specific position around the central pole. The glass baskets suspended at the end of each arm have flat bottoms so they could have been passed around independently without spilling the contents.

Sweetmeat stands in such an impeccable state of preservation as this one are extremely rare today; although when they were made they occupied pride of place on both sides of the Atlantic. In Virginia, for example, George Washington, John Randolph, and John Marshall are all known to have owned such a stand. Thus it is most fitting that this stand should have found a new home in Colonial Williamsburg, the gift of John V Rowan Jr. in memory of Winifred Draco Shrubsole.

Shortly before his death last year, Rowan also presented Colonial Williamsburg with the silver tea urn illustrated at right, which represents another elegant form that would have graced the tables of wealthy English and American houses in the second half of the eighteenth century. This one is distinguished by its unusual means of keeping the contents hot. Instead of a heated iron, the upper part of the base supports a pierced basket for charcoal. A central chimney rises through the body and cover and is open at the top beneath the finial. When the um was in use, the finial would have been removed. A tiny pair of tongs that hangs from the finial could then be employed to replenish the charcoal as needed. Beneath the base is a copper dish to receive the ashes, which fall through the fine piercings in the bottom of the charcoal receptacle.