Fabulous Antique Photo Album

I recently acquired this wonderful antique photo album from a consignment shop. I had seen it previously on several occasions, but it was a little on the expensive side, and so I passed it by, though not without longing.

 I have a collection of cabinet cards, many of which date from the 1880s until the early 1900s, and an old photo album was something I hoped to acquire at some point to put some of my favorite cabinet cards in for display.
Surprisingly, these are often hard to come by and are usually in really poor condition, with pages missing and loose and the bindings torn. More often than not when I find these they have no photos in them, although sometimes there are. The ones that are in good condition can be quite expensive and they appear to be highly collectible. I finally caved in and bought it, since I just couldn't pass it up. It is in fairly decent condition, and even though it has no photos in it, the pages are all in good condition and the binding intact.

The album is on a stand, and still has it's pretty clasp. On the front is a small circular mirror centered in an anchor. The anchor is often mistaken for having a Naval or seafaring connotation. The dealer who owned this piece must have thought so too, for it was marked as a "nautical" album, however, to the Victorians, and to many Christians from the first century and onwards, the anchor meant something else entirely.

 The anchor is a symbol of hope. Because of the great importance of an anchor in navigation, it was regarded in ancient times as a symbol of safety. Early Christians adopted the anchor as a symbol of  hope in future existence. The hope spoken of is not earthly hope, but heavenly hope and consequently relates to the hope of salvation. The Epistle of the Hebrews (Hebrews 6: 19-20) was the first time the idea of hope was connected to the anchor; "Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil...". The symbol of an anchor appeared in catacombs and tombs as far back as the second and third centuries. It was popular again during the 19th century, particularly with the sentimental Victorians, and was a motif often used on gravestones and mausoleums. If you have ever wandered in any old cemetery, you might have seen the anchor carved on some stones.

In many old photographs from funerals during the Victorian period, there is often a floral arrangement that is made to look like an anchor present at the service. Sometimes it would be photographed with other floral arrangements, sometimes it would be photographed as part of a display that included a portrait of the deceased. It was not uncommon, or unusual, for photographs to be taken of funerals and floral arrangements, or the deceased themselves laid out in their coffin, surrounded by all the flowers.

To many modern eyes, the assumption would be made that the person must have been associated with sailing, or the Navy, or the sea, but this is not the case. Certainly it would have been a popular motif for someone who had been involved in the seafaring life, or coastal towns, but the anchor ,as a symbol, was not limited to just those who were. And, as evidenced by this photo album, it seemed to have been used as a motif on other things as well, besides at funerals and cemeteries; anything that might be associated with remembrance, it seems.

When the clasp is undone, it folds down like so, revealing another mirror behind it. You can also see how vivid the colors of the velvet was originally.

When it is unfolded like this, now the album itself can be opened.

The pages are quite pretty, and though there is some wrinkling and slight foxing on some pages, they are all still intact, none of them loose; all attached to the fabric binding.

 A couple of the pages had small tears at the bottom of the photo frame, where there is a slot to insert the photos into, and some of them had been taped, but I just slit the tape using an Exact-O knife.
                            Then I proceeded to add some of my old cabinet cards into it!

I filled up the whole album, except for the last two pages, which had smaller frames for photos that would be about the size of calling cards. I don't have any that size, so I left them empty.

Did I also mention that the original owner's name is written in pencil on the inside front cover? "Romman Ulbrich" it says in typical 19th century script.  Additionally, there is also a music box on the backside of the stand, tucked into a small, pocket-like box. It's very rusty, but we did get it to work, since the key was still in the back!
I've tried to date this photo album, but it's quite difficult. The fabric covered albums like these were popular for a long period of time during the Victorian Era, and even into the early 1900s. The style of the album and the vivid, bright, almost garish, red-pink color of the velvet fabric seems more like 1880s or 1890s to me, but at this point I'm only guessing.

It certainly makes a statement, and currently occupies a small table in our parlour, on prominent display.

Thanks for stopping by!

Where did the Summer Go?

It's hard to believe that it's already mid-August and that soon it will be Fall!

Where did the summer go??

Oh yes, I remember now.....my summer was spent watering, watering, watering. Or sweltering in horrible heat!

I didn't really have many nice yard/ garden pictures to share this year because of the awful heat and drought we had, not to mention the landscaping project that destroyed a big part of our yard!


I had hoped to do a small outdoor tablescape this summer; now that the weather seems to have cooled down and it's much more pleasant, perhaps I can still do one before Fall.

About three weeks ago the new grass was starting to fill in, finally....

It's been growing so slowly because of the unusual heat, despite my daily watering.

My pink Tall Phlox is doing well, despite the heat and dryness............

This is how everything looks now, a couple of weeks later, after the weather cooled down and we got some rain:
Side yard:

Back yard:

Front yard:

Of course, there's lots of weeds in with the grass; it's just how it goes. Weeds are opportunistic and will germinate wherever and however they can.  Erik is not happy about the weeds ( he REALLY hates weeds) but we have to wait until Fall and the grass goes dormant before our lawn service can come and treat the new grass with weed killer. If they do it now, the new grass will die.

Recently, I also found two of these antique pressed-back wooden chairs. They have spool-style spindles and what look like Colonial Ball finials. They were a steal at $40. They were marked as having " honey-dipper" finials, but I don't think that's correct. I just love press-back chairs!

 I actually bought these two for our kitchen, but they also look pretty on the porch and can be easily brought out for extra seating on the porch if we need more chairs!

Press back, or pressed back, chairs became very popular in the late 1800s with the development of steel die stamps that were mounted on rollers, which were then passed over a finished chair crest rail under immense pressure. The die stamp had sharp edges and resulted in pressing a design into the wood quickly and efficiently. It was much cheaper than having hand-carving done by a cabinet-maker, and also allowed for fast production. In the new era of purchasing goods by catalog, it allowed the new wealthier Americans to buy decorated furniture that looked "hand-carved" without having to pay a hefty price, or wait weeks to have it carved by hand.

There were both "shallow cut" and "deep cut" designs. The shallow cut design required only a single pass of the die stamp and therefore were the most in-expensive. A deep cut design required multiple passes, and might also include some hand chasing, which made the "deep cut" the more expensive option.

I have a fondness for old wooden chairs and I was quite delighted to find this pair for my breakfast table!

Thanks for stopping by!

New Vintage Finds

One of the items that has been on my "list" lately ( I have mentioned before how much I make lists for everything) are some more pictures for the walls at Le Beau Paon Victorien.
I have a few that are up, there are a couple more that are still in storage, because even after six years here I still have not decided to where to hang them; but there are still spaces that I'd like to fill.

In our front entry hall, I am trying to make a grouping of pictures over the spinet piano.
At Hallowe'en I hung two framed Hallowe'en collages that I made next to a crazy hologram picture that pretty much hangs on the wall all year (long story!).

After Hallowe'en was over, I put them away with all my other decorations.
In their place, I hung a small framed picture I bought in November in Tomah, Wisconsin during a girl's weekend getaway.

This is a close-up of the picture; it's not really big and the style is a little more country/primitive than my usual style, but the picture spoke to me. It looks so much like my grandparent's farm that I just loved it.
But, as I said, it's kind of small, so I've been looking for other pictures to make a small grouping with this one. I was hoping to find a picture in an oval frame, something vintage and Victorian, preferably. I found an oval picture of a sailing ship once, but the picture was in such bad condition and I wasn't sure about the subject matter, even though typically I adore mariner pictures.

There is one picture that I KNOW would be perfect for this grouping, but it's my mom's and she is still not quite ready to give it up, even though she knows I want it. It's just a picture she bought at a rummage sale right before my brother was born, in 1969. I'm sure it's nothing valuable, but I looked at it all the time as a child and loved it. I think next time I go out there I will take a picture of it to share!

A couple of weeks ago, I took my husband to go browsing at some local antique shops to see if I could find anything for the walls and I ended up finding two delightful vintage J. Gould prints!

I recognized the name of J. Gould on the bottom of the prints, and also I loved the colors and fineness of the prints.
John Gould was an English ornithologist and bird artist. He was born in Dorset, England in 1804, the son of a gardener. Eventually, he also became a gardener and worked with his father at the Royal Gardens at Windsor. John Gould became an expert in taxidermy, which prompted him to start his own business in London. His skill led to a position of Curator and Preserver at the museum at the Zoological Society of London, where he met and came into contact with many naturalists, including Charles Darwin. Much of Gould's work is referenced in Darwin's book, On The Origin of Species.

Viewing the many collections of birds that came to the museum led to his interest in birds and publications of many beautiful monographs of bird species, with hand-colored illustrations that were done mostly by his wife, Sarah Gould, although John Gould did many of the drawings himself. The couple eventually traveled to Australia in 1838 to study the region's bird species, intent on producing the first major work on that subject. The result was The Birds of Australia   (1840-1848) a seven volume set which included many new species of birds which were new to science, and 600 colored plates of birds. Two other works he did in Australia, The Mammals of Australia (1849-1861), a three volume set, and A Monograph of the Macropodidae, or Family of Kangaroos (1841-1842), led to John Gould being known as the "father of bird study" in Australia. The Gould League in Australia is named for him.  John Gould published numerous books about bird species and published about 2,999 paintings of birds. It was no wonder he was called the "Bird Man"!

19th century lithographs of J.Gould's bird plates are quite beautiful and quite valuable, and were done in the early 1880s after his death in 1881, but these prints that I have are from a later date. Reproductions of J. Gould's lithographs were done in the 1940s, by the I.M.Fisher Company. They are still very attractive and very nicely done, even for reproductions, and many have been hand-colored. Mine look like they were hand-colored and I believe are still in  their original 1940s frames. I bought these for $8.00, which I think is a pretty decent price!

These prints are called "Parakeets No.603"; there are two in the "set", 603A and 603B. I've always loved birds and when I was in high school I had a number of parakeets and finches as pets. Nowadays, I have cats, so I don't keep birds anymore, but I still love pictures of birds. The Victorians were also big fans of birds, and flowers and other natural subjects, so these seem to be fitting subject matter for my Victorian house.

I might change the frames, even though I kind of like these trippy 1940s-era frames and the painted glass "matting".

I also found these two vintage lace jabot collars:

Originally, the term jabot referred to the frills or ruffles decorating the front of a shirt,and then evolved into a decorative clothing accessory consisting of lace or other fabric attached at the neckline, either sewed onto a neck band, collar or just pinned in place with a brooch.
In the 17th and 18th century, the jabot consisted of lace or cambric and was sewn to the edging of the neck opening of a man's shirt and partially visible under a vest worn over it. Jabots made of lace hanging loose from the throat were an essential component of men's fashion during the baroque era. By the late 19th century, jabots were used only in women's clothing, and were lace or cambric that was sewn onto a neckband or pinned in place onto a blouse, or shirtwaist.  I don't know how old these are; today most jabots are only worn as part of official costumes, like female judges in the United States Supreme Court and by members of the French magistrate court dress and academic court.
They have the look and feel of being vintage, if not exactly 19th century. I seem to remember seeing jabot collars on pictures of women's clothing in some magazines I have from the late 1930s and early 1940s, so perhaps these were from that era.

I bought them because they looked so neat, but I didn't have anything specific in mind for them. I am sure I can come up with a use for them!

I also found another pair of cotton pillowcases with beautiful crocheted lace on the edges, for our bed.

Erik found a folio of old phonograph records that we can play on our antique upright phonograph:

I have two other folios that I bought years ago, but this one, although a little water-damaged, was completely full and none of the records were cracked (one of my other folios had only a handful of records and the other had more records, but some of them badly cracked.)

Erik liked this collection because nearly half of them were John Phillip Sousa songs and marches. The folio was only $10, so we bought it, of course!

Thanks for stopping by and visiting!
I'll be linking to these parties:
Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home
Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage
Home Sweet Home at The Charm of Home

Going Back to 19th Century Wisconsin Part 2

As promised, here is the second part of my visit (in May) to Old World Wisconsin.

If you missed the first post, which also explains just exactly what Old World Wisconsin is, I suggest you click HERE.



Sorry for the looooong delay in posting the second half.....I have been incredibly busy!

I had left off showing some pictures from Sanford House and Loomer Barn. Here is a picture of some of the fences that abound in the "village", with a picture of the boarding house/inn, Four Mile Inn, in the background.

Here is the family sitting room in Sanford House. This farmhouse was built in the 1860s and though the Sanfords were farmers, they were actually quite well-to-do. Attractive furnishings and  lovely patterned carpeting are shown here.

Sanford House has quite a large " butler's pantry", with plenty of shelves for the family's dishes, glassware, serveware, prep bowls and crocks, as well as silver pieces, and enough room for storing plenty of dry goods and even a bath tub for bathing!

A pantry could be large or small, elegant or utilitarian. Some wealthy homes would have a locked silver safe in the butler's pantry to keep the good silver in. Those types of homes probably had an actual butler that oversaw the pantry and it's contents. Some pantries just had open shelving, like this, or they might have glass doors. Some would have a dry sink, or perhaps counter space and a pass-through to a dining room, for food to be served from. People who were not wealthy often did not have a butler or stewards, but many 19th century homes, even middle class homes, had one or two domestic servants, often employed as kitchen help. Perhaps a cook and a scullery maid would make up the kitchen staff in an average home.

After we left the Crossroads Village, we arrived in the "German Area". Here we visited the Koepsell Farm, c.1880. Just outside the farmhouse, we could view their vegetable garden (and outhouse!). Typical of most 19th century farms, they also had an herb garden. A kitchen garden or herb garden was popular even for urban homes in the 19th century.

Surrounding the Koepsell farmhouse were some apple orchards, enclosed in these curious fences.

Inside the Koepsell farmhouse we viewed the family sitting room. Note the patterned portieres over the doorway at the right-hand wall, next to the desk. Portieres were commonly used in the 19th century over a doorless entry to a room, but were also sometimes placed in front of actual doors. They were often used merely as decoration, but sometimes they were used as a way to mitigate drafts as well. They also were a useful and attractive way to screen private rooms (such as bedrooms or family sitting rooms) from the view of public rooms ( rooms that were used for entertaining guests).

This bedroom demonstrates some of the typical furnishings that might be found in a 19th century bedroom. A bed with a feather mattress and small table with a chamber pot. A wardrobe, or clothes-press, for storing clothing. In the foreground you can see a basin and pitcher on a washstand.

The Koepsells had a number of boys and this was the bedrooms that the boys slept in. It also appears that laundry was done in this room, as evidenced by the drying rack and washboard in the foreground. Most people, when viewing 19th century beds, note that the beds appear to be very short and often wonder if people were shorter back then. This is not actually the case; beds were shorter because for most of the 19th century, people believed that it was healthier to sleep  in an almost upright position. It was thought this was better for breathing and for the lungs.

Stepping into the kitchen of the farmhouse, once again I am struck by how different kitchens were then, as compared to how they look now.  Most kitchens had no built-in cabinetry or long gleaming countertops like today. Free-standing tables and cabinets and shelves were used to store bowls and utensils used for prepping and cooking food. Clean towels were laid over prepared food or bread dough set out to rise to protect from flies and dirt, and cheesecloth, secured with twine or string, was tied snugly over the tops of large stoneware crocks that contained butter or lard.

Just opposite the big stove is a work table for preparing food. On the day we were visiting, the rhubarb in all the gardens was ready and in all the homes where 19th-century-costumed volunteers were working, they were all preparing rhubarb pie.  Note the bucket underneath the work table with kindling sticks for the stove, and also a large enamelware coffee pot. Even though this is a farmhouse and is probably a little more rustic and plain, even in regular urban homes kitchens weren't much different than this. This farmhouse was built in 1880, only a few years before our house was built. I imagine that our kitchen might have looked similar to these here in Old World Wisconsin.

Just behind the farmhouse were a number of barns and buildings and sheds. Here we found two of the number of draft horses that live and work at Old World Wisconsin. These are Percherons; they are a very large, well-muscled French breed of draft horse, and are known for their intelligence and willingness to work. They are the most populous of draft breeds and were used extensively throughout the 19th century in both America and Europe. Popular with farmers, they were also extensively used in large cities to pull carriages, buses, stagecoaches, used in forestry, in circuses and railways. Originally bred to be war horses, they eventually began to be used in agriculture and hauling heavy loads and began to be imported to the U.S. in the 1850s, with the largest number imported in the 1870s and 1880s. My mother's father, who had a farm for many years, used Percherons on his farm as well, even into the 1960s.

Just down the road from the Koepsell farm, is the Schulz Farm. This farmhouse had a very lovely front garden (literally, a garden) with this fanciful fence made of branches.

The garden was laid out in this grid-like pattern, with square beds, which seems sort of like "square-foot gardening". It was a very warm, dry day, so one of the ladies of the Schulz house was out watering.

Adjacent to the Schulz farmhouse, a pair of oxen came over to the fence to take a look at us.

One of the oxen says hello to Erik. Like all the other farm animals at Old World Wisconsin, these oxen are a working team and are used for farming here.

Today they had a day off, as there was no plowing to do, I guess. It was a nice Sunday in the pasture, grazing on the new grass.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed my little jaunt into Wisconsin in the 19th Century!!!

Going Back to the 19th Century at Old World Wisconsin

Just recently, for Mother's Day, actually, I attended a Mother's Day brunch with my mother and sisters at a very special place.

It's an "outdoor history museum" called Old World Wisconsin (click HERE to learn more.Click on
 the "Explore Old World Wisconsin" and then click on the Interactive Map for more pictures and info about the buildings), which depicts the life of 19th-century rural pioneers and immigrants, and includes 65 historical buildings, most of which are  from areas in Wisconsin that were painstakingly dismantled, moved to the site and carefully rebuilt.

The historic structures include ethnic farmsteads, rural outbuildings, furnished homes and an 1870s crossroads village, complete with traditional, small-town necessities ( a church, blacksmith shop, carriage-maker shop, general store, boarding house/inn, cobbler's shop, town hall and one-room schoolhouse), all set in a beautiful prairie and woodland setting that looks very much like south-eastern Wisconsin would have looked to the early pioneers.

Costumed volunteers and artisans work and farm in the outdoor museum and there are many popular events, including Barn Dances, Vintage Base Ball weekend ( a base ball game played by the rules of 1860), Day Camp for children, interactive work shops and much more. It is also a very popular place for  school Field Trips.

I visited Old World Wisconsin as a fourth-grader for a school field trip, back in 1979, which was three years after it opened in 1976, but that was the last time I had been there. Now, 33 years later, I made my second visit for a Mother's Day Brunch that was being held in the Clausing Barn. (below)

There used to be many large trees that shaded the area around the barn, but about three years ago a tornado came through the area and all of the big trees went down. Miraculously, none of the historic buildings were damaged, although many people's homes were destroyed nearby.

They had the inside beautifully set up with tables and a very delicious brunch buffet. Afterwards, we all bought tickets to tour the "museum".

One of the first areas to visit is the 1870s "Crossroads Village", and the Thomas general store, pictured below.

The Four Mile Inn is also in the village; a boardinghouse and inn.

In St. Peter's Church, some of the church ladies were having a "sale" of hand-crafted items to benefit the poor. One was kind enough to play a few hymns on the pump organ for us.

I had a special interest in taking pictures of the kitchens and pantries of the historic homes. This was the pantry in a house called Hafford House, which was a very small house. I am always trying to envision what kitchens looked like in the 19th century. I often have people ask what the kitchen in our house probably looked like when it was built in 1886. The houses in "Crossroads Village" are rural and from the 1870s period, but the way kitchens looked by the 1880s wasn't probably hugely different. People don't often understand that kitchens of the past were nothing like we know them today.

I also love to see the dishes and cookware! Everything in the village is authentic, or if it was rebuilt (like a woodworking bench that is used for workshops in another building or the fences) it has been built with materials and in the way that it would have been made in that time period....meaning, made by hand with hand tools of the time period.

This is the kitchen in another house that was called the Benson House. The building names are the actual names of the owners who originally built them and they all have a known history to go along with them. 

This type of stove shown was the most common in use during most of the 19th century. They were mostly wood-burning stoves. Every spring they would be "blacked", using "stove blacking", which was a type of polish. Blacking the stove prevented corrosion and rust of the metal. 

The Benson family was a little more well-off than the Haffords. Their house is a little larger and they have nicer things. They also have a parlour, which the Haffords did not (The Haffords used their kitchen as both a kitchen and sitting room/family room).

The Benson House sitting room has wallpapered walls, a desk, comfortable chairs, it's own stove for heat, a table by the window that was handy for serving refreshments for guests ( there is a lovely water tippler on the table) and decorative ingrain carpeting. Ingrain carpeting was the most popular carpeting in 19th century rooms until about the  1880s-1890s. To learn more about the types of carpeting and other decorative elements popular in the 19th century, click HERE to read a post I wrote about Victorian period decorating.

In an adjoining room you can glimpse a small parlor organ (also known as a pump organ or harmonium)

The stove in the center of the room was probably a coal burning stove. Our house once had them in every room that didn't have a fireplace, as evidenced by the flue holes that are still present, albeit covered over.


This is the Sanford House. The Sanford House is actually about c.1860s. The Sanfords were farmers but were quite successful and well-to-do and they had a large family that included six children, I believe.

Mr. Sanford's study and desk were quite impressive. Erik was quite taken with this desk and would love to have one like this in his Victorian gentleman's study!

This elegant piano was placed in a front room of the Sanford house.

Across from Sanford House is a historic barn, Loomer Barn, and many beautifully fenced fields. A rural village in 1870 would have looked very much like this, with great spaces of fields between the few houses and buildings that made up a tiny little village.  There are farm animals at Old World Wisconsin; mostly oxen and horses of the breeds that farmers of the 19th century depended on for farm work.  Just like everything else here, all the farming is done using authentic historic farm equipment and implements and traditional farming methods. You can even take a workshop to try your hand at it yourself if you want to experience, first-hand, how to perform domestic chores, such as clothes-washing, plowing, preparing meals and working in the fields!

I have more to show but I am going to break it up into two posts so that this doesn't get overly long!

Thanks for stopping by! Part 2 will be coming soon!