Toilet service
A toilet service is a set of objects for use at the
The toilet service was the most important item of "dressing plate", as opposed to table plate, and was often a gift upon marriage;
The US market for vanity sets had almost entirely disappeared by 1937
Terminology
The word toilet comes from the French toile meaning 'cloth', and toilette ('little cloth') first came to mean the morning routine of washing, tidying hair, and shaving and making up as appropriate, from the cloth often spread on the dressing-table where this was done. This meaning entered the English language as toilet in the 17th century; only later did toilet start to compete with lavatory as a euphemism for the plumbing fixture. The Oxford English Dictionary records toilet in English from 1540, first as a term for a cloth used to wrap clothes, then from 1662 (by John Evelyn) for a gold toilet service, and by 1700 for a range of related meanings (a towel, the cloth on a dressing-table, the act of using a dressing-table, and so on), but not for a lavatory, which did not come into use until the 19th century.[7]
Contents
The contents of a service were variable but the classical grouping had as its largest piece the mirror, usually decorated at the top with some form of crest. In the 17th century these were rectangular, usually oblongs in "portrait" format, though the Louvre mirror and the Lennoxlove service use a "landscape" format. The frame normally had a wooden framework holding the glass, over which the metal was fitted.
The service usually contained two fairly small candlesticks, allowing the face to be lit from below. There may also be "hand-candles", "chamber candles" or "chamber sticks", short, with a wide saucer-like base and a loop or handle. These were the last lights to be put out at night, and were carried in the hand.[10] Candlestick makers (who always used casting) were treated as a speciality within silversmithing, and the candlesticks may be made by different workshops from the other pieces, as may any snuffers, also regarded as a speciality.[11]
The service often contains one or a pair of ewer and basin sets for washing. There is normally a number of other vessels of various sizes and shapes, some covered and others not, which go by a great variety of names, and whose purpose was perhaps always rather undefined. A variety of brushes might be included, and sometimes a small bell. In the 18th century glass and porcelain items might be mixed in with the silver ones. Services also might contain food plates and cutlery (usually just for one) for breakfast or snacks in the bedroom or dressing room, or when travelling. One large type of bowl is connected with oatmeal, though it seems this might either be made into a facial, or eaten as
The male service was much simpler, typically consisting of a shaving-bowl (oval, with a crescent cut out at one side), ewer and basin, a soap-box, toothbrush holder, perhaps a tongue-scraper and some boxes and bowls.[14] These started later, in the 18th-century, when men began to shave themselves, or have a servant do it, rather than requiring a quasi-medical barber surgeon specialist.[15]
In Mundus Muliebris, a satire on fashionable ladies published in 1700, by Mary Evelyn, the daughter of John Evelyn (or by him, or both of them),[16] the toilet service was described. Although by no means an insider at court, Evelyn was able to see the queen's toilet service and his diary records his admiring comments.[17] In the poem:
A new Scene to us next presents,
The Dressing-Room, and Implements,
Of Toilet Plate Gilt, and Emboss'd,
And several other things of Cost:
The Table Miroir, one Glue Pot,
One for Pomatum, and what not?
Of Washes, Unguents, and Cosmeticks,
A pair of Silver Candlesticks;
Snuffers, and Snuff-dish, Boxes more,
For Powders, Patches, Waters store,
In silver Flasks or Bottles, Cups
Cover'd, or open to wash Chaps;...[18]
In the 18th-century special dressing-tables with a fitted mirror began to be made, so removing the need for the traditional centrepiece of a service.[19] Men also had special shaving tables, often on long legs for shaving standing up.[20]
The full toilette did not always occur at the start of the day, but might be before going out or having a formal meal. In the Zoffany portrait of Queen Charlotte above: "... Father Time appears scythe-bearing on the clock, but the face reads exactly 2.30pm, which means that the Princes have finished their dinner (which since November 1764 they had taken at 2.00pm) and are visiting their mother, after she has dressed (a process which began at 1.00pm), while their governess waits in the room beyond. The Queen will dine with the King at exactly 4.00pm."[21]
Packing a German service of 1743-45 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
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The set is mostly in silver-gilt, but includes two Japanese Imari ware teacups
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Various Augsburg goldsmiths made pieces
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Next a padded cloth protects the mirror
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The case is leather over a wood frame
History and style
Earlier examples of the component pieces existed, as is clear from documentary records and stray surviving pieces, but the toilet service as a large matching set of pieces seems to become common among the rich in the 17th century, and especially the France of
Heraldic decoration with the
Except for heraldic animals,
A few services survive in the very different technique of Asian filigree, with scrolling filigree decoration applied to plain silver beneath, or left as openwork. These are concentrated in the Hermitage Museum and Burghley House in England. They appear to come from China, and India in the case of one of the Hermitage services.[30]
In the 18th century services continued to be made, with both the Rococo and
Older services continued to be in demand, and the provenance of several surviving examples shows them being bought and sold, presumably for continued use (see the Shireburn/Norfolk service below). Several services were created from pieces by several different makers from a range of years, as can be seen from their hallmarks; for example the Lennoxlove service contains hallmarks from a period of some 15 years.[35] A service in the Royal Collection was created in 1824–25 for Frederick, Duke of York, mostly using pieces a century or more old, supplemented by some contemporary ones and a new case.[36]
Porcelain
Porcelain services were produced from the 18th century onwards. Initially the grandest examples were hardly less expensive than silver. What was probably Madame de Pompadour's Sèvres porcelain service of 1763 is in the Wallace Collection in London. She died the following year and the service was probably incomplete and never delivered. Lacking a mirror, it has three pairs of containers and two brushes.[37] When Maria Feodorovna, wife of the future Tsar Paul I of Russia visited Paris in 1782 under a thin incognito as the "Comtesse du Nord", Queen Marie Antoinette gave her a Sèvres toilet service that cost 75,000 livres, though this included decoration in a complicated technique using gold foil, enamel and jewels.[38]
Another large service in Meissen porcelain with gold mounts was given to Maria Amalia of Saxony, Queen of Naples and later of Spain, by her mother Maria Josepha of Austria in 1747, to celebrate the birth of her son.[39] A service in Vincennes porcelain with Parisian gold mounts was apparently intended as a diplomatic gift to Constantinople in the mid-1750s, but was never completed, perhaps because Franco-Turkish relations deteriorated. A casket survives in the Wallace Collection in London.[40]
Battersea enamel was also used for toilet items; the Royal Collection has a set of 7 rectangular "toilet boxes" from c. 1765, painted with pastoral landscapes around Rome.[42]
Travelling services
Most services originally had custom travelling cases, as most owners had more than one residence. Some of these survive; the Lennoxlove service was found in its ornate "travelling chest" in the attic of Lennoxlove House in 1924, having apparently been overlooked as the house had changed hands more than once.[43] The Naples Meissen porcelain service, which had an unusually long way to travel from its maker in Dresden, had an individual leather case for each item.[44]
Some services were made with an eye to being compact and easily transportable. The "necessaire" was a term for either a small decorative container for small handy tools such as scissors, tweezers, a spoon, pencil and similar,
Gallery of small necessaires and travelling cases
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English, c. 1750,Etuior Toilet Case in gold with Scenes from the "Metamorphoses", "contains a silver-and-gold folding knife, a pair of scissors, a gold bodkin and pencil, a pair of steel tweezers, and an ivory writing tablet".
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German, Toilet Case, c. 1750, "contains two glass scent bottles, a mirror, a folding ivory writing tablet, a gold bodkin, two gold toothpicks, and a miniature pair of gold tweezers".
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Miniature dressing-case, 1750-1760, sharkskin and silver
Early examples
The surviving piece that goes back closest to the origin of the grand toilet set is the mirror from the service of Anne Hyde, wife of the future James II of England, which was made in Paris in 1660–61, and is now in the Louvre. This probably drew from the design of the 40 piece service, now lost, given by Louis XIV to Anne of Austria, which is usually taken to be the first of the grand matching services; this may have been in solid gold.[48]
Only three marked French toilet services from the reign of Louis XIV survive.
Some 25 English toilet services from before 1800 survive,
One of these, a 34 piece
The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has two significant examples, the Acton toilet service (14 pieces, silver, London, 1699–1700),[57] and the Treby toilet service (29 pieces, London, Paul de Lamerie, 1724–1725),[58] for which the bill survives, giving interesting information.[59]
The vanity set
By the end of the 19th century, simplified vanity sets were produced in large quantities that consisted of comb, brush, and a hand mirror that can be augmented with a lot of optional items like
Starting in 1917,
Museum pages
- The Lennoxlove service in the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, link, Paris, 1652–72
- The Calverley service, London, 1683–84, Victoria and Albert Museum[64]
- An English service of 1687–88, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, overall picture, including a mirror, pin-cushion and two scent bottles,[65]
- Royal Collection, Edward Farrell and others, hallmarks 1699-1824, in 2016 on display at Hampton Court Palace? ; Martin Guillaume Biennais (1764–1843), Travelling service 1800-15, for Stéphanie de Beauharnais
- "Washbowl bearing the arms of the Duchess of Orléans, legitimate daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan", Paris, 1719–20, Louvre
- The Kildare Toilet Service by David Willaume, 1722, Art Fund, now in the Ulster Museum
- Schenk von Stauffenberg service, German, 1740s, Metropolitan Museum of Art.[66]
- The Sackville service, about 1750, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- The Williams-Wynn service in the
- Silver and shagreen 5-piece service, John Paul Cooper, 1925-9, Victoria and Albert Museum
- 18 Piece Rose-colored Glass Toilet Service, 1940s, Pola Museum of Art, Japan
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Swedish service, 1697
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A lady receives a sales call from a modiste selling ribbons, François Boucher, 1746
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A pair of low toilet candlesticks, Derby Porcelain, c. 1765
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Pieces from a 1780 service, (?) Strasbourg
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Chiffonière dressing table, Paris c. 1780
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Interior view
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Service ofQueen of Swedenfrom 1907, when this was made
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A later service in Japanese-style lacquerware
Notes
- OCLC 1569040.
- ^ MOS
- ^ Glanville, 76, 98
- ^ Louvre
- Marriage à-la-mode: 4. The Toilette is from 1743, before she became at all notable at court. See also the Louvre "washbowl" page.
- ^ a b Beaujot 2008, p. 165.
- OED, "Toilet"
- ^ Louvre; MOS
- ^ Schroder
- ^ Taylor, 209
- ^ Glanville, 99; MOS
- ^ Glanville, 99; Louvre; MOS; Glory, 7–8; Taylor, 159-160
- ^ Schenk von Stauffenberg service, German, 1740s, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Philippe de Montebello and the Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1977–2008, p. 55, James R. Houghton, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)
- ^ Glanville, 98; Bennion, 294–302; Glory, 122
- ^ Adlin, 10, 30–31
- ^ Sources disagree
- ^ Taylor, 159
- ^ Emory Women Writers Resource Project, Mundus Muliebris: Or, The Ladies Dressing-Room Unlock'd, and her Toilette Spread, an electronic edition
- ^ Adlin, 5–9, 24–25
- ^ Adlin, 10, 30–31
- ^ "Text adapted from The Conversation Piece: Scenes of fashionable life, London, 2009", at "Johan Joseph Zoffany (Frankfurt 1733-London 1810), Queen Charlotte (1744–1818) with her Two Eldest Sons c.1765" on the Royal Collection website.
- ^ MOS
- ^ MOS
- ^ Glanville, 99
- ^ MOS; Glanville, 202-04
- ^ Glanville, 99; Snodin, 125
- ^ MOS; Snodin, 28-32, 122-125
- ^ Glory, 60–61; Expert, 7
- ^ The Sackville service, about 1750, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- ^ the Hermitage services, Burghley House service known as "Queen Elizabeth's toilet service", Chistie's lot details
- ^ Schroder; Adlin, 9
- ^ Adlin, 9–10
- ^ Glanville, 100, quoted
- ^ Expert, 9
- ^ MOS; Snodin, 125; Taylor, 211
- ^ "Edward Farrell, Toilet service, hallmarks 1699–1824", Royal Collection, RCIN 50478
- ^ Wallace Collection page
- ^ Sassoon, 102
- ^ Cassidy-Geiger, 237–238; Bonhams lot details, "A Meissen gold-mounted oval snuff box from the toilet service for Queen Maria Amalia Christina of Naples and Sicily, Princess of Saxony, circa 1745–47"
- ^ "Six plaques mounted in a coffer; Plaques 'de coffre' of the second size", Wallace Collection
- ^ "Scent-bottle holder, c.1853, RCIN 34627", Royal Collection website
- ^ "Set of toilet boxes, circa 1765, Enamel, gilt metal, RCIN 22385
- ^ MOS; The Lennoxlove travelling chest
- ^ Cassidy-Geiger, 237–238
- ^ Adlin, 27; Glory, 244-45
- ^ For "medical" and hygienic items, see Bennion, 294–302
- ^ "Martin Guillaume Biennais (1764–1843), Necessaire case, 1810–14", Royal Collection
- ^ Louvre (also the Louvre "washbowl" page below, for "40 pieces"); Cowen, 79
- ^ MOS
- ^ Toledo Blade – Nov 14, 1979, "Toilet Set Gift to Museum"
- ^ MOS
- ^ Glanville, 99
- ^ Expert, 7–8 (plus the Norfolk service itself)
- ^ Expert, 7
- ^ Photo of information sheet at the house
- ^ Department for Culture, Media and Sport: Export of Objects of Cultural Interest, 2012/13 Report; Expert, throughout; Glory, 78–79
- ^ Ashmolean page, "The Acton toilet service"; Expert, 7
- ^ Ashmolean page, "The Treby toilet service"; Expert, 8
- ^ Taylor, 211
- ^ a b Beaujot 2008, p. 150.
- ^ Beaujot 2008, p. 158.
- ^ a b Beaujot 2008, p. 156.
- ^ Beaujot 2008, p. 162.
- ^ Taylor, 159-160
- ^ Adlin, 26
- ^ Philippe de Montebello and the Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1977–2008, p. 55, James R. Houghton, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)
- ^ also Snodin, 125
References
- Adlin, Jane, with contributions from Lori Zabar, Vanities: art of the dressing table, reprint from the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fall 2013, Volume LXXI, number 2, 2013, Metropolitan Museum of Art, downloadable PDF
- Beaujot, Ariel (2008). "Coiffing Vanity: Advertising Celluloid Toilet Sets in 1920s America". Producing Fashion. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 150–166. .
- Beaujot, Ariel (2012), ""The Real Thing": The Celluloid Vanity Set and the Search for Authenticity", Victorian Fashion Accessories, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, pp. 139–178, ISBN 9781472504517
- Bennion, Elisabeth, Antique Medical Instruments, 1979 (reprinted), University of California Press, ISBN 0520038320, 9780520038325, Google Books
- Cassidy-Geiger, Maureen, Fragile Diplomacy, 2007, Yale University Press, ISBN 0300126816, 9780300126815, google books
- Cowen, Pamela, A Fanfare for the Sun King: Unfolding Fans for Louis XIV, 2003, Third Millennium Information Ltd, ISBN 1903942209, 9781903942208, google books
- "Expert" = "A Queen Anne silver-gilt toilet service –The Norfolk toilet service, Expert adviser’s statement, to the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, Great Britain: Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2012 (with useful Appendix on major toilet services in England), accessed 24 June 2015
- ISBN 1136611630, 9781136611636, google books
- "Glory" = The Glory of the Goldsmith: Magnificent Gold and Silver from the Al-Tajir Collection, Christie's, 1989, ISBN 0903432366
- "Louvre" = Anne Hyde mirror, "Toilet Mirror", page on the Louvre website, accessed 24 June 2015
- "MOS" ="Lennoxlove toilet service fact file", Museum of Scotland, accessed 24 June 2015, see also the individual pieces
- ISBN 0892361735, 9780892361731,
- Schroder, T., "The Treby toilet service", Ashmolean Museum, "Information derived from T. Schroder, British and Continental Gold and Silver in the Ashmolean (2009)", accessed 24 June 2015
- Snodin, Michael (ed), Rococo, Art and Design in Hogarth's England, 1984, Victoria and Albert Museum/Trefoil Books, ISBN 086294046X
- Taylor, Gerald, Silver, 1963 (2nd edition), Penguin
- Wees, Beth Carver (and Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute), English, Irish, & Scottish Silver at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1997, Hudson Hills, ISBN 1555951171, 9781555951177, google books