What are your Favourite Collectables?
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Some people think wine has only been popular in Britain in recent years, but that is definitely not so. There was serious drinking at Regency dinner parties when the ladies had retired to the drawing room to drink tea and the servants would bring decanters of wine, port and sherry for the gentlemen. Keeping the wines cool was not easy in a room with a blazing fire and lit by dozens of candles. The most simple solution was using a pair of elegant ice buckets, but during large parties and balls they would have used a wooden wine cooler, which could hold a number of bottles and could be stowed away under the table.
Since there has been scent there have been scent bottles, but they first became popular in the mid 18th century. The best quality ones were made of gold, silver, enamel and porcelain, decorated with colourful enamels or gilding. The majority of scent bottles were made of glass, which could be cut, gilded, enamelled and produced in a number of different shapes.
Clear glass would often be cut or faceted to reduce the amount of light reaching the scent inside. Early designs often had a second chamber to accommodate smelling salts. Its corrosive effect on clear glass made opaque or coloured glass more popular, dark blue, emerald, amethyst and ruby being the most desirable and some scent bottles were made in dual colour.
Many people remember the flower fairies as enchanting mythical figures from their childhood, while nowadays we see them on greeting cards and giftware. The Flower Fairies were created by Cicely Mary Barker in 1923, when she had her first series of drawings published in a book. Since then her works have become children’s classics and are sold around the world.
Cicely Mary Barker was born in Croydon, South London in 1895 and being a sickly child she was educated at home. Cicely excelled at pastel drawing and taught herself to paint in oils and watercolours. Her father encouraged her to draw and together they joined the Croydon Art Society in 1908.