Excellent facsimile of rare (1888) catalog features over 800 engravings and line drawings of bathtubs, water closets, kitchen fixtures, more. Captions.
Most of us take modern bathrooms for granted—they are an essential part of our homes, but we ignore the complex network of pipes, pumps, and treatment plants that make up indoor plumbing’s infrastructure. Telling the story of one of the world’s greatest feats of engineering and mass production, Bathroom follows the room’s evolution and the lifestyle it enables. Considering how and why the bathroom emerged, Barbara Penner describes how it became an international symbol of key modern values such as cleanliness, order, and progress. She explores how colonialism, the media, fashion, world expositions, and tourism led to the bathroom being exported across the globe and explains the tensions this process has caused. While Penner investigates bidets, high-tech toilets, cast-iron bathtubs, and walk-in showers, she also ponders the low-tech, sustainable alternatives available to us. Filled with illustrations, Bathroom is an amusing and eye-opening cultural history of one of our most used but overlooked rooms.
This magnificent display of 166 plates from an extremely rare set of portfolios depicts scores of ironwork examples, among them beautiful gates, balustrades, balcony railings, window grilles, church screens, and lantern holders.
Rare catalog features abundant illustrations of late-19th-century taste in diamonds, watches, and all manner of rings, lockets, and charms, scarf and stick pins, earrings, bracelets, and scores of other baubles. Over 2,200 engravings.
"So thoroughly is the American ethos embodied in the works of American silversmiths that it has given to their product a typical identity and it never can be mistaken for that of any other country." — Charles Messer Stow in the Introduction. Forsaking the flourishes and ornamentation favored by their European contemporaries, early American gold- and silver smiths pioneered a new American aesthetic sensibility in creating for their well-heeled clients finely worked, luxurious metalware for the table, which was marked by a simplicity and forthrightness of design. These accomplished artisans have left us not only a stunning legacy of priceless silverware but also an opportunity to examine the culture, lifestyle, and values — in short, the developing ethos — of young America. For social and cultural historians as well as Americana buffs, the study of silversmithing in this book will provide a unique perspective on a spirited new nation. For serious connoisseurs of American gold and silver ware, silver dealer Stephen G. C. Ensko's American Silversmiths and Their Marks is a rich and definitive directory. Ensko has compiled an exhaustive list of over 3,000 gold- and silversmiths working between the years 1650 and 1850. Biographical details and location of their shops are given wherever possible. Maps of the great metropolitan centers of smithing (Boston, New York, and Philadelphia) with shop locations noted are appended. Over 200 of the finest examples of the work of early American artisans are displayed in sharp, clear black-and-white photographs. Items include tankards, cups, candlesticks, sugar boxes, inkstands, tea sets, porringers, plus a pitcher, sauce dish, teapot, and other works by famous New England patriot Paul Revere. The usefulness of this work is perhaps most apparent in the practical listing of identifying marks associated with gold- and silversmiths. With over 3,000 entries, this feature alone renders American Silversmiths and Their Marks indispensable to enthusiasts interested in tracking down and identifying antique pieces.
Magnificent reproductions of 100 rare engravings from a much-imitated reference work depict with precision and elegance a wide range of social classes — from royalty and merchants to military officers and laborers.
Covers the early primitive sanitation devices such as cesspits and urban dung heaps. From Roman times up to modern-day luxury, this book leads us chronologically through the story of sanitation. It also describes the advances that came with the onslaught of technology from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. With first hand accounts and evidence from diaries and contemporary records, David Eveleigh traces the history of inventions that have affected everyone throughout history, told with a lively combination of human interest and drama.
Excellent reprint of rare 1938 catalog contains hundreds of illustrated items advertising everything from Bickmore's Gall Cure, wool blankets, and rawhide hackamores to Ding skirts, saddle bags, and angora chaps.