The decorative arts world has many “squishy” and vague vocabulary words, but few are “squishier” and vaguer than cartouche. Originally, the term comes from Egyptology and is used to describe a oval enclosing hieroglyphics and having a horizontal line at one end. (The line denotes royalty.) The oval had significance not unlike that of a closed circle, in that it was believed that an oval around a person’s name provided protection to that person. The strong association with the god-like royalty of ancient Egypt and the “good luck charm” nature of the symbol meant that it was eventually co-opted by the rest of the population and, as a result, it appears on all manner of structures and objects from the era.

Centuries later, when Egypt was a land divided constantly by conflicts, soldiers, seeing these ovals everywhere, are said to have found them to resemble the paper cartridges used in muskets. The French word for cartridge is cartouche and thus it became, in its original use, the term applied to this particular hieroglyphic element.

A Civil War-era example of a paper cartridge. (p4A item # D9865000)

Sterling silver vase with blank cartouche. (p4A item # E8906323)

If one wants to collect signatures of America’s founding fathers, land patents are a great place to start! A land patent sounds complicated and technical, but it is simply the name for the transaction and resulting document of a land title when it is issued to the first purchaser of land from a sovereign entity. Usually the sovereign entity in question is the United States government, but in some instances, there are people who hold land in the U.S. that was originally granted by, for example, the king of England, as King George gifted land to a number of early settlers in return for services, just as the United States would later create military districts to gift land in exchange for service. When land was purchased, it was not formally patented, meaning made irrevocably the property of the owner, until it was paid for. (Land patents are sometimes referred to as land grants, which is technically incorrect almost all of the time. Land grant is typically seen used in association with institutions, such as the land grants that were given to form a number of early Midwestern universities.)

Thomas Jefferson signed land patent, document signed, partially printed on vellum, May 2, 1803, signed by Thomas Jefferson as President (1801 to 1809) and James Madison as Secretary of State (President, 1809 to 1817). (p4A item # D9713780)

This means many early land patents bear the signatures of the founding fathers – Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, even Patrick Henry signed some as governor – so they can be highly collectible. Obviously the popularity of the signer weighs on the value (a Jefferson land patent, for instance, is worth more than a James Monroe), but the location can also be a factor, as a patent associated with what is now a highly populated area might have a larger pool of potential buyers than one for a more remote area. Occasionally the patentee can influence the value, if it’s someone who is also well-known, as can an interesting or unusual aspect of the patent. As always condition is important. Folds and fading are expected, but the quality and clarity of the actual signature are crucial. (Any documents, if displayed at all, are best framed with UV glass or acrylic and all acid-free materials – and hung out of direct sunlight.) Collectors should proceed with caution however, as some land patents were signed on behalf of the president by secretaries (particularly true during and after Andrew Jackson’s administration), and secretary-signed documents of any kind are worth a small fraction of those signed by presidents themselves.

We live in a rather disposable era just now, with plastic buttons popping off in the laundry and pants with broken zippers being discarded, but in the past, the medieval past, luxury goods like fabric and closure accessories like buttons and clasps were difficult to come by. Their expensive nature meant they needed to be easily salvageable and clothing was designed with this in mind. Take for instance a cope, which is a long liturgical garment that is open in the front and originally had a cloth rectangular panel across the front that joined with hook and eye closures to keep the cope from slipping. These panels, known as morses, highly visible as they were on the breast of the wearer, came to be highly decorated, initially with elaborate embroidery and then later with gemstones sewn into the decorations. Naturally, as the wealth of the Church grew and as ceremonies and cathedrals became increasingly ornamented throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era, the morse became a metalwork piece, a wrought clasp.

Gorham gem and micromosaic set gold-washed sterling silver morse. (p4A item # E8893107)

“Vermeil” is a French word co-opted by the English in the 19th century for a silver gilt process. Vermeil is a combination of silver and gold, although other precious metals are also occasionally added, that is then gilded onto a sterling silver object. The reddish (vermilion) hue of the addition of the gold gives the product its name. Vermeil is commonly found in jewelry, and a standard of quality (10 karat gold) and thickness (1.5 micrometers) has been set.

Vermeil was initially created through fire or mercury gilding, a technique developed in the 18th century, which requires the application of a solution of mercury nitrate to the object and then the application of a silver and gold/mercury amalgam. In order for the gilding to adhere to the surface, the coated object is placed in a kiln and exposed to extreme temperatures, which burns away the mercury. (This is similar to the technique used to produce ormolu, a form of gold-gilt.) As a result of the intense and prolonged exposure to mercury, it has been estimated that most mercury gilders died before the age of 40. Mechanical or chemical gilding techniques were largely replaced by electroplating by the mid-19th century, and the process was banned in many countries in the mid-1800s.

The White House has a room known as the Vermeil Room, so named for a collection of vermeil tableware.

A Gorham sterling silver compote with vermeil interior – note the reddish hue. (p4A item # D9827145)

Scandal & the Story of Bakelite

Bakelite hit the market in 1907, heralding the arrival of the modern plastics industry. Bakelite was the first completely man made plastic, as until then, plastics such as celluloid, casein, and Gutta-Percha all had as a base a natural material. It was developed by Belgian-born chemist Dr. Leo Hendrick Baekeland who started his firm General Bakelite Company to produce the phenolic resin type plastic. Bakelite was inexpensive to manufacture and extremely durable, and made its inventor a wealthy man. In subsequent generations, however, the Baekeland’s family story was one of tragedy rather than triumph. In 1972 the schizophrenic great grandson of Dr. Baekeland stabbed his mother to death. Savage Grace, by Natalie Robbins and Steven M.L. Aronson, a book about the family and the murder, was a best seller when it was published in 1985.

Bakelite for Appliances & Jewelry

Early Bakelite was used almost exclusively in the manufacture of radios, appliances and electrical components because it was lightweight, inexpensive, durable, moisture-resistant and non-flammable. The limited color range of black, brown, and the occasional burgundy and dark green was appropriate for use as radio cabinets, vacuum cleaner parts, and electrical elements, but eventually, formulas were developed to produce the plastic in a range of appealing colors. Its ability to be carved and molded made it ideal for inexpensive jewelry. Early jewelry attempts to mimic more expensive materials like ivory amber, onyx, and jade, but by the 1930s, consumers began to appreciate the plastic for own qualities and Bakelite jewelry made its appearance everywhere from Sears Roebuck to Sacks 5th Avenue.

Colorful Art Deco Bakelite Gems

Artists and designers discovered the beauty and workability of Bakelite (and Catalin, a competitor who also produced a phenolic resin plastic). New technology created additional colors, and the plastic became available in scarlet, green, amber, brown burgundy, red-orange, and Kelly green and black and marbled. By 1934, yet another plastics company had produced a formula for Bakelite in pastel colors including willow green, light blue, pink and yellow. Due to the unstable nature of the chemicals used in the pastel colors formula, these pieces are hard to find, and as such, are among the most costly of Bakelite jewelry.

Bakelite Jewelry & Values

Bakelite could be molded, carved, or laminated, and designers and turned to the material for brightly colored, inexpensive flights of fancy to adorn everything from wrists to waists. Necklaces featured beads in a variety of sizes and colors, sometimes terminating in carved or laminated pendants. A popular choker style necklace consisted of pairs of bright red cherries on celluloid stems and leaves dangling from a celluloid chain (today $150-300.)

Bakelite Bracelets

Bracelets were stretchy, cuff, charm, wrap or tank-track styles. Stretchy bracelets consisted of beads or lozenges strung on elastic. Cuff styles could be wide and deeply carved, or narrower bands intended to be stacked together. The band could be smooth, molded (usually in a geometric pattern), carved, or pierced. Wrap bracelets were beads strung on wire, and tank-track bracelets featured overlapping semi-circular links. A quick check on eBay turned up bracelets on offer in prices ranging from $50-300. Deeply carved, wide red cuffs seem to fetch the highest prices, followed by amber, then green.

Bakelite Pins

A variety of pins were produced, either whimsical figurals or geometrics. The Art Deco love affair with the Scottie Dog was evident in the jewelry on offer. Horses also had a strong presence, but pins of elephants, penguins, marlins, and cherries are also available. Pins range in price from $118 for a lovely carved leaf, $130 for a carrot, $102 for a red horse head, and an almost shockingly low $18 for a classic Scottie in red.

Bakelite Jewelry Affordable (Again)!

Prices reached almost ludicrous levels in the early 1990s, and the jewelry became so popular that other Bakelite pieces such as poker chips, Tootsie Toys and Mah Jong tiles were frequently fashioned into jewelry. The market seems to have cooled, meaning that it’s once again possible to buy a fine Bakelite cuff bracelet for less than a gold one.

Reference note by p4A Contributing Editor Susan Cramer, August, 2011

Bakelite

Bakelite is named after its inventor, Belgian-born chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland (1863-1944). After emigrating to the United States in 1889, Baekeland dabbled in photography. In the late nineteenth century, photographic paper was so insensitive to light that prints had to be exposed outdoors in sunlight. Baekeland invented a more sensitive paper that he called Velox. He sold the rights to George Eastman in 1899 for a million dollars.

Now independently wealthy, Baekeland bought a farm near Yonkers, New York and set up a laboratory in the barn. He wanted to develop an insulating coating for copper wire, the kind of wire used to wind solenoids and motors. In those days wire was coated with shellac, which was laboriously made from the shells of the lacca beetle that inhabited southeast Asia. Shellac was expensive and in short supply. Could Baekeland develop a synthetic substitute?

In 1907, he prepared a mixture of phenol, formaldehyde and lye which had the color and the consistency of honey. Unexpectedly, the mixture hardened in its container, producing a solid whose surface faithfully duplicated the shape and the texture of its container.

It occurred to Baekeland that his mixture could be heated in molds to create objects of any desired shape. Thus was born Bakelite, the world’s first synthetic plastic. Baekeland founded The Bakelite Corporation to manufacture his material.

Bakelite is known by several generic names. It is referred to as phenolic because phenol (C6H5OH) is the main ingredient. Phenol is the preservative that is responsible for the “mediciney” smell of preschoolers’ paste and is the “mediciney” ingredient in antiseptic mouthwash.

It is also known as thermosetting because the chemical reaction that creates the solid actually occurs while the molding compound is being heated in the mold. Once the solid object has been formed, it cannot be softened again, unlike thermoplastics such as polystyrene that can be melted and re-used. This property makes thermosets useful for objects that might become warm, such as housings for electrical devices or even handles for kitchen pots and pans.

A Manning-Bowman coffee pot with bakelite handle, base and spigot handle. (p4A item # D9810832)

Baekeland’s competitors also made thermosets, and the word “bakelite” (small b) became a generic term denoting phenolic from any manufacturer. To further complicate things, The Bakelite Corporation later became a distributor of polystyrene, which was sold under the trade name Bakelite.

The original lump of Bakelite was a transparent amber-colored solid whose appearance Baekeland described as “frozen beer”. A few products were actually molded that color, notably ladies’ combs that were meant to simulate hand-carved tortoise shell.

Most Bakelite was made with additives that altered its appearance or mechanical properties.

Flock (short cotton threads) was often mixed with molding compound so that the threads would become embedded in the finished product. The fibers improved Bakelite’s mechanical strength, much as steel reinforcing rods strengthen concrete.

The most common appearance for a Bakelite object was opaque black, which was produced by incorporating carbon black into the molding compound. The ubiquitous black rotary-dial telephone was manufactured of black Bakelite.

A Henry Dreyfuss bakelite telephone. (p4A item # B126428)

A bakelite “bow tie” pattern bangle bracelet. (p4A item # D9769092)

Bakelite’s popularity began to decline in the 1940s as thermoplastics became more readily available. The first major thermoplastic was cellulose acetate, which was made from a byproduct of the cotton gin. Intricately-shaped objects can be fabricated by injection molding. Molten plastic is forced into a mold under high pressure, where it cools and solidifies. Since cellulose acetate was derived from an agricultural product, supply could not keep pace with the growth of demand. After World War II, polystyrene (made from petroleum) quickly became the most popular thermoplastic.

The days of manufacturing collectible jewelry from Bakelite are over, but phenolics continue to be used for applications where heat resistance is required, such as electrical equipment or cookware.

Reference note by p4A Contributing Editor Joseph H. Lechner, Ph.D.

Sitting Bull, the man who would later become the Hunkpapa Sioux chief, was born in South Dakota, near the Grand River. His Lakota name was Tatanka-Iyotanka. In his thirties, he began to build his reputation as a warrior, leading war parties in Red Cloud’s War against a number of Dakota Territory forts. Although the U.S. negotiated with the Sioux in order to end the war and although Chief Gall signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie in July of 1868, Sitting Bull, who never trusted the government’s promises, refused to acknowledge the treaty and continued to lead raids in the area into the 1870s.

It is, however, the events of June, 1876 for which Sitting Bull is known: leading a large band of warriors (historians debate the numbers, but estimates range from 900 to 2000) against roughly 650 officers, troops and scouts, annhilating the advance troops. Of course, public outcry brought even more troops and scrutiny to the Sioux, and Sitting Bull was forced to retreat with approximately 200 Sioux to Canada during the spring of 1877. For several years Sitting Bull refused to surrender and offers of a pardon, but by 1881, the combination of the weather, hunger, and dwindling numbers forced him to return. After surrendering at Fort Buford, Sitting Bull and his band were transferred to Fort Yates, and later to Fort Randall, where they were held for nearly two years.

An O.S. Goff cabinet card portrait of Sitting Bull. (p4A item # D9994743)

Sitting Bull’s autograph on an autograph album page. (p4A item # D9961940)

In the late fall of 1890, James McLaughlin, the U.S. Agent in charge of Standing Rock, became concerned that the Ghost Dancers were about to leave the agency and that Sitting Bull might accompany them, potentially become a roving band with a prominent figure to promote rebellion. McLaughlin decided to send men to arrest Sitting Bull on December 15, 1890. Perhaps worried about not appearing in control, 43 men arrived just around dawn to arrest Sitting Bull. Some of Sitting Bull’s people encouraged him to resist, and perhaps concerned that the situation would get out of hand, members of the police began to attempt to use force. Members of Sitting Bull’s community were outraged. Catch-the-Bear, a Sitting Bull supporter, shot Bullhead, one of the policemen, setting off a round of gunfire that left Sitting Bull and six policemen dead along with seven Sioux. Two policemen would die later of wounds.

Sitting Bull’s body was taken to Fort Yates for burial. In 1953, his Lakota family had his body exhumed and moved so that he could be reburied closer to his place of birth, but there is some discussion that the body moved was not that of Sitting Bull.

Hollie Davis, p4A Senior Editor, January 29, 2010

Elijah Pierce was born on March 5, 1892 on a Mississippi farm, the son of a former slave. After receiving a pocketknife from his father, Elijah began carving. It might not have amounted to much without the guidance of his uncle, Lewis Wallace, who helped him learn the basics, like choosing the right kind of wood for a project. By the age of seven, he was carving small animals based on the farm animals that surrounded him, often carving while he sat on a creek bank watching his fishing pole. Even as a child, he was generous with his work, giving his pieces away to anyone who admired them.

Farming in Mississippi was hard work, and it didn’t take Elijah long to decide that he wasn’t interested in following his father into farming. Instead, he opted to pursue a career as a barber, learning his trade in a Baldwyn, Mississippi barbershop. Pierce began to experience a little prosperity, marrying Zetta Palm and settling into a home. Sadly, Zetta died within a year or so of their marriage, giving birth to a son, Willie, and Pierce sank into a depression, rambling around the country, riding the rails and working odd jobs. Whenever he found his way back to Baldwyn, his mother would encourage him to follow the religious calling she always believed he had.

Finally, in 1920, Pierce began to recover and acquired a preaching license, but he didn’t stay put for long. Between the freedom his license offered him and the security of work as a barber, he decided to join the Great Migration, moving north to Illinois. While in Danville, Illinois, Elijah Pierce met Cornelia Houeston, a young woman from Columbus, Ohio. In 1923, when Houeston returned home, Pierce followed her, asked her to marry him, and set about making a life for them in Columbus.

Work at the barbershop took care of the Pierce family, and Elijah used his spare time to continue carving the little wooden figures he’d enjoyed crafting since childhood. After carving Cornelia a tiny elephant for her birthday and promising her a whole zoo, the animals started coming thick and fast. By the 1930s, he started mounting figures, sometimes on wood, sometimes on cardboard, and in 1932, he completed what would become his best-known work, Book of Wood, a series of individual scenes carved in relief and depicting the life of Jesus. (Several of these pieces, along with the bulk of Pierce’s museum-held works, are in the collections of the Columbus Museum of Art.)

An Elijah Pierce carving of a man and a serpent – typical of the religious themes frequently present in his work. (p4A item #
D9801915)

Cornelia died of cancer in 1948, and by 1951, Pierce had opened his own business with a barbershop on E. Long Street in Columbus. In 1952, he married again after meeting Estelle Greene, and Pierce continued to enjoy a good life with a thriving business, community respect, and time to pursue his interests in baseball, boxing, movies, and, of course with a barbershop setting, politics – all themes that also appear in his carvings.

Elijah Pierce’s barber chair from his E. Long Street shop in Columbus, Ohio. (p4A item # D9822026)