Summer Place - Part Thirty-Five A

Summer Place

Part Thirty-Five A

            I am at the end of the tale?  Yes.

            JUST some postulation, conjecture and supportive reference for some of the objects within the tale ... that I wish to ‘go on’ about... for a while.  I start with the ‘tea caddy’ just purloined and go back from it to the other ‘old china’ pieces I found of Compass Parker’s wife; Sophia’s... ‘tea china’ (Parts Twelve, Eighteen, Twenty-Four, et al).  And I wish to speak of the tea china’s ‘good taste’ within New England decorative arts.

            From that old china I will expand to ...and go on about... another ‘piece’ of old china from the tale; the Pittsfield platter (Parts Five and Twenty A).  The intent here will be to further speak of ‘good taste...within New England decorative arts’ AND THE REFERENCE EOOK that supports this ‘particular” ...AND... by my good fortune to be found in this reference book too...  a whole other object... from a whole other tale... from my word processing fingers... that is already posted on this blog (A DOOR KNOCK).  And again with that object too; ‘good taste’... ‘in New England decorative arts’.

            Then I will take this pleasantness over to Sophia’s desk (Parts Eleven and Twenty-Seven, then continuing).  I will look over, again, the predicament in progress AND the future finery of the desk after passing its crossroad of destiny and... a little reference source to support its crossroads and ...my feelings on the domestic ‘good taste’... ‘in New England decorative arts’ for the desk.  This last is a sort of ‘the right thing to do’ about the desk and why... too.

            Then the tale is done.

            The tea canister was a true ‘plum of a find’.  It anchored the previous found teapot and tea cup with saucer.  It more than anchored... me.  I deserved it.  I didn’t actually be the actually FOUND IT... a lasting disappointment.  HOW it was found; the verbal summary quizzically endeavored to be brought forth from the verbal skill depths of ... the contractor who... did not ‘find it’ but ...received it from the hands of the electrician who was ‘wiring’ ‘in there’ “by the chimney I guess”.  Ok so I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to get that squared away especially because the faux composite marble wall SEALED the chamber crawl space chimney site ‘for eternity’. 

            I did rumble my thoughts about I ...there and... ‘missing that’, “huh; could have” BUT concluded that the caddy was actually found in an ‘in-under’ space that was exposed by the wiring process.  NOW... I... PRIDE MYSELF... on my lunatic scrutiny of this sort of space JUST IN SEARCH of such hidden iota but... here admit ...that I was a touch under the gun of my hunting skill deployment that day so... simply ‘missed it’ and truly ‘lucked out’ that the electrician DID find it, DID retrieve it, DID hand it over to Mr. Contractor who DID save it and DID GIVE IT TO ME.  Maybe there’s some of my grandmother’s ghost in that somewhere... too?

            At home alone with the caddy I... admiringly inspected its... undisturbed forlorn old damaged condition.  I fussed with the cap pieces, assembled the cap pieces, fitted the pieces of the cap on the caddy and ...denoted that the ...truly capping... the aesthetic balance of the whole caddy AND of this cap.... little tiny ball final cap top finger lift... was gone; not there in the pieces, and had been GONE A VERY LONG TIME... meaning that Sophia number one could have ‘busted that off and lost it’... “huh”... but  none the less...I love it.  I did not join the caddy with its companion ‘old tea china’.  I sort of just left it ‘around’... like I have the punch bowls... and the teapot and cup & saucer.  “Around” means very obscurely ‘set’ very here or there ish ‘out there’ in the catacombs of my antiquarian in progress stuff-in-buildings and spaces.  One does need a flashlight to see ‘it’ but, well, I’m around there all the time with one so I can... ‘deal with that” display ‘set’.  I see all of it often and... like that.

            “Sell it?”

            “Of course”.  It’s just that it won’t bring that much money and I’ll have to listen to condition whines so... including that most who ‘could buy it’ do not have exposure to ‘that’ (King’s Rose Creamware) so are not ‘active buyers’ or are ...actually stumped... as to ‘WHAT’ ‘IT IS’... so... ‘no hurry’.  Particularly to I is that the teapot, et al, is absolutely the way it was last used... by Sophia... in the ...at the very latest... 1820’s; her last teas before she died... undisturbed, as found... by I.

            My grandmother found Compass Parker’s tea bowl and really did “show you” so THAT gets touchy there.  Or do I care.  That she cared.  Cared?  Or was she too a ‘kept that’ due to forces outside and away from IT; the commercial realities and actual cash value... ‘of it’.  Remarkably, what I am saying again is that ...the stuff doesn’t bring that much because... no one knows about it except deep within the condition conscious antiquarian collector’s realms... so... WELL:

            It is ALSO ‘is rare’, in fact; IS hard to find... and THAT further restricts ‘it’ to make it easy for my grandmother to ‘just leave it’ in the back of her old ratty china cabinet with, occasionally a ‘someone’ ‘spies it’.  I use that sales method all the time.  Too.  My grandmother ‘taught you that’.

            So what could make this ‘of good taste within New England decorative arts?  ASIDE from the ‘obvious to the eye’ qualities; the positive art qualities.  Aside from the design history of the ‘old china’, the history of its usage in Colonial New England and the history of its ‘survival’ in the ‘homes’... of old New England...:  The Queen and her ‘ware’, the King and his ‘rose’.  The tea, the caddy, pot, cup, saucer... ON the ‘tea table’ “PLEASE”.  What I like the best in books that circles all this just postulated... AND steps it attic lore further... with delight... is the ...may be used as a handbook-manual of good taste of Colonial New England decorative arts:  “THE WARNER HOUSE (Portsmouth, NH) A RICH AND COLORFUL HISTORY”, Joyce Geary Volk, editor, Warner House, Portsmouth, 2006.

            This wave-wand book of colonial New England good taste... touches the I (my eye) of my New England antiquarian soul by showing in photograph illustration with textual discussion ...on page 79-80 and figure 7.7... a ‘like Compass Parker’s’ punch bowl WITH a large fragment of another punch bowl; a fragment actually found IN THE ATTIC... of the Warner house.  “OH don’t I JUST... wish with MY flashlight I be that finder”.  I thank them for ‘doing that’ ‘with that’ piece of ‘found that’.  THERE is ‘good taste’ found in New England ATTICS.  Of course... one has to LEARN this by... GOING to collections and SEEING and TOUCHING and... finding by flashlight (?).  Some of us ARE CRAZY... but if one DOES “find it by flashlight” one DOES remember ‘it’ well.