Toilet service

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Silver-gilt service made in London in 1777–78 for the Swedish royal family
A toilet service in silver

A toilet service is a set of objects for use at the

ewers and basins, two candlesticks, and an assortment of bowls, boxes, caskets, and other containers.[2]
One or more brushes and a pin-cushion, often as a top to a box, are often included. The sets usually came with a custom-made travelling case, and some services were especially designed for travelling.

The toilet service was the most important item of "dressing plate", as opposed to table plate, and was often a gift upon marriage;

levée was sometimes a semi-public occasion for great persons in the early modern period, and the toilet service might be seen by many people.[5]

The US market for vanity sets had almost entirely disappeared by 1937

hairdos
.

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

Detail of Queen Charlotte with her Two Eldest Sons, Johan Zoffany, 1765, (the whole painting)

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.

Queen Charlotte, usually show that the elaborate crest at the top of the mirror has disappeared beneath the lace covers spreading to the sides, which are probably tied round it. These were used to pull over the service on its table when it was not in use, or when husbands or other inconvenient visitors appeared in the dressing room.[9]

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]

Marriage à-la-mode: 4. The Toilette
, 1743

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

ecuelles (small bowls with two handles) and others. The 48-piece German Schenk von Stauffenberg service (1740s, now Metropolitan Museum of Art) contains several items for food and drink, including a teapot, and also items for writing, such as an inkstand.[13]

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]

A Dutch lady at her toilet, 1650s
Top of the Weston Park mirror, 1679

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)

  • The set is mostly in silver-gilt, but includes two Japanese Imari ware teacups
    The set is mostly in silver-gilt, but includes two Japanese Imari ware teacups
  • Various Augsburg goldsmiths made pieces
    Various Augsburg goldsmiths made pieces
  • Next a padded cloth protects the mirror
    Next a padded cloth protects the mirror
  • The case is leather over a wood frame
    The case is leather over a wood frame

History and style

Lennoxlove toilet service in silver-gilt; its travelling chest on the other side of the case[22]
German travelling toilet service, 1695

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

Huguenot silversmiths helped to spread French styles in England and elsewhere.[23] Once established, the characteristic types of pieces changed little, but their style followed general fashions in the decorative arts.[24]

Heraldic decoration with the

pattern books became important, initially mostly French, but later originating in England and other countries; these supplemented earlier drawings and individual prints. The sophisticated and complicated designs of the Rococo accelerated this process.[27]

Except for heraldic animals,

Al Tajir collection, the Calverly service in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and another.[28] The English Sackville service of about 1750 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) has several pieces decorated with scenes of lovers in landscapes.[29]

Nécessaire de voyage, given by Napoleon I to his Empress, Paris, 1810

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

Marriage à-la-mode: 4. The Toilette (1743), with a mirror larger than in any surviving example, is disapproving,[31] and one of many satirical accounts and caricatures.[32] At the same time the development of dressing tables with integral mirrors, and porcelain vessels, represented an alternative style of toilet equipment. The silver-gilt Neoclassical service made in London in 1779, now in Sweden (illustrated at top) is a late English example, and Philippa Glanville describes the Zoffany portrait of Queen Charlotte as showing "almost the latest flourish of the silver toilet service",[33] although George III gave her another service a few years later.[34]

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]

Shaving and bathing set of Napoleon

Osbourne House.[41]

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,

etui, or a larger travelling set, originally usually concentrating on small sets of pieces for drinks such as tea and coffee, but later expanded to also include articles for the toilet, writing, sewing, and medicine.[46] The larger cases also became works of art in their own right, with fine inlays in brass. As a frequent traveller, Napoleon commissioned several of these.[47]

Gallery of small necessaires and travelling cases

  • English, c. 1750, Etui or 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".
    English, c. 1750,
    Etui
    or 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".
  • 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".
    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".
  • Miniature dressing-case, 1750-1760, sharkskin and silver
    Miniature dressing-case, 1750-1760, sharkskin and silver

Early examples

1679 service at Weston Park (sconces later)
Grand Duchess Alexandra Nikolaevna of Russia's toilet service, 1842

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.

Museum of Scotland has the 17 piece Lennoxlove Service, and Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen has a 17 piece service owned by a Swedish princess.[49] A further unmarked set is now in a museum in Toledo, Ohio;[50] this is "almost identical" to the Lennoxlove service.[51]

Some 25 English toilet services from before 1800 survive,

Knole House has an English set of 18 pieces made in 1674, the earliest English-made service.[54] The 14 pieces in the service at Weston Park are hallmarked for 1679.[55]

One of these, a 34 piece

Rundell, Bridge & Rundell as part-exchange for a new dinner service for the Duke of Norfolk in the early 19th century, and they it sold to William Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale, adding his cypher "discreetly".[56]

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

Victorian period the sets had three functions: a tool to maintain an appropriate hairdo, a gift, and an erotic symbol of hairbrushing (and thus flirt).[61]

Poster stamps for Pyralin Ware

Starting in 1917,

Great War had "entirely upset" the hair accessory trade,[63] as a simple comb was sufficient to maintain the new hairdo. The onset of the Great Depression led some department stores to stop offering the sets in 1931; the market was gone altogether by 1937.[6]

Museum pages

  • Swedish service, 1697
    Swedish service, 1697
  • A lady receives a sales call from a modiste selling ribbons, François Boucher, 1746
    A lady receives a sales call from a modiste selling ribbons, François Boucher, 1746
  • A pair of low toilet candlesticks, Derby Porcelain, c. 1765
    A pair of low toilet candlesticks, Derby Porcelain, c. 1765
  • Pieces from a 1780 service, (?) Strasbourg
    Pieces from a 1780 service, (?) Strasbourg
  • Chiffonière dressing table, Paris c. 1780
    Chiffonière dressing table, Paris c. 1780
  • Interior view
    Interior view
  • Service of Victoria of Baden, Queen of Sweden from 1907, when this was made
    Service of
    Queen of Sweden
    from 1907, when this was made
  • A later service in Japanese-style lacquerware
    A later service in Japanese-style lacquerware

Notes

  1. OCLC 1569040
    .
  2. ^ MOS
  3. ^ Glanville, 76, 98
  4. ^ Louvre
  5. Marriage à-la-mode: 4. The Toilette is from 1743, before she became at all notable at court. See also the Louvre "washbowl" page
    .
  6. ^ a b Beaujot 2008, p. 165.
  7. OED
    , "Toilet"
  8. ^ Louvre; MOS
  9. ^ Schroder
  10. ^ Taylor, 209
  11. ^ Glanville, 99; MOS
  12. ^ Glanville, 99; Louvre; MOS; Glory, 7–8; Taylor, 159-160
  13. ^ 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.)
  14. ^ Glanville, 98; Bennion, 294–302; Glory, 122
  15. ^ Adlin, 10, 30–31
  16. ^ Sources disagree
  17. ^ Taylor, 159
  18. ^ Emory Women Writers Resource Project, Mundus Muliebris: Or, The Ladies Dressing-Room Unlock'd, and her Toilette Spread, an electronic edition
  19. ^ Adlin, 5–9, 24–25
  20. ^ Adlin, 10, 30–31
  21. ^ "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.
  22. ^ MOS
  23. ^ MOS
  24. ^ Glanville, 99
  25. ^ MOS; Glanville, 202-04
  26. ^ Glanville, 99; Snodin, 125
  27. ^ MOS; Snodin, 28-32, 122-125
  28. ^ Glory, 60–61; Expert, 7
  29. ^ The Sackville service, about 1750, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  30. ^ the Hermitage services, Burghley House service known as "Queen Elizabeth's toilet service", Chistie's lot details
  31. ^ Schroder; Adlin, 9
  32. ^ Adlin, 9–10
  33. ^ Glanville, 100, quoted
  34. ^ Expert, 9
  35. ^ MOS; Snodin, 125; Taylor, 211
  36. ^ "Edward Farrell, Toilet service, hallmarks 1699–1824", Royal Collection, RCIN 50478
  37. ^ Wallace Collection page
  38. ^ Sassoon, 102
  39. ^ 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"
  40. ^ "Six plaques mounted in a coffer; Plaques 'de coffre' of the second size", Wallace Collection
  41. ^ "Scent-bottle holder, c.1853, RCIN 34627", Royal Collection website
  42. ^ "Set of toilet boxes, circa 1765, Enamel, gilt metal, RCIN 22385
  43. ^ MOS; The Lennoxlove travelling chest
  44. ^ Cassidy-Geiger, 237–238
  45. ^ Adlin, 27; Glory, 244-45
  46. ^ For "medical" and hygienic items, see Bennion, 294–302
  47. ^ "Martin Guillaume Biennais (1764–1843), Necessaire case, 1810–14", Royal Collection
  48. ^ Louvre (also the Louvre "washbowl" page below, for "40 pieces"); Cowen, 79
  49. ^ MOS
  50. ^ Toledo Blade – Nov 14, 1979, "Toilet Set Gift to Museum"
  51. ^ MOS
  52. ^ Glanville, 99
  53. ^ Expert, 7–8 (plus the Norfolk service itself)
  54. ^ Expert, 7
  55. ^ Photo of information sheet at the house
  56. ^ Department for Culture, Media and Sport: Export of Objects of Cultural Interest, 2012/13 Report; Expert, throughout; Glory, 78–79
  57. ^ Ashmolean page, "The Acton toilet service"; Expert, 7
  58. ^ Ashmolean page, "The Treby toilet service"; Expert, 8
  59. ^ Taylor, 211
  60. ^ a b Beaujot 2008, p. 150.
  61. ^ Beaujot 2008, p. 158.
  62. ^ a b Beaujot 2008, p. 156.
  63. ^ Beaujot 2008, p. 162.
  64. ^ Taylor, 159-160
  65. ^ Adlin, 26
  66. ^ Philippe de Montebello and the Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1977–2008, p. 55, James R. Houghton, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)
  67. ^ also Snodin, 125

References