12 minute read
Grate British Isles: Nutmeg graters
GRATE BRITISH ISLES
More than 500 years since nutmeg was ‘discovered’ in Eastern Indonesia, author John Reckless lifts the lid on the most collectable graters
In Medieval times nutmeg was a rare, perfumed spice from the ‘unknown East’ with fabled, perceived medicinal and disease-preventative properties. It was 1512 before the Portuguese reached the Banda archipelago in Eastern Indonesia – six tiny islands to which, for reasons largely unknown, the Myristica fragrans nutmeg tree was confined.
Subsequently, from 1600 the colonial Dutch endeavoured to monopolise the trade, with resistance from the British. Since then, with its high financial and human cost, nutmeg and mace (its associated spice), has exerted a surprising influence on both world politics and social mores. Wealth from the trade monopoly even altered European buildings and artistic sponsorship,
Above Nutmeg grater, c. 1690, British, cowrie shell, silver
Right Michel Garnier (1753–1829) Myristica fragrans, 1801
while international conflict altered world politics. Rarity of early nutmeg and mace supplies, fuelled perhaps by the medieval belief in its disease-management potential, contributed to it being valued at more than its weight in gold. As tastes changed nutmeg was increasingly used in food and drink as flavour. Now, graters are functional rather than celebrated, antique models making beautiful collectors’ items, reflecting the skill of their artisan makers and the spice’s intriguing history.
Plague protector
Right A London-made silver grater mounted on a cowrie shell, 1690s
Below left South German silver pomander (c. 1680s), externally modelled as a snail. The snail can retreat into its shell for safety, so wearing an amulet showing a snail carries the symbolism or meme to help avoid plague
Below middle left The pomander opens to four gilded segments covered by a hinged central disc labelled for contents. The other more open side would hold a sponge
Below The pomander is modelled as a snail which, being able to retreat into a shell for safety, was seen as being about to ward off plague
Above right An unmarked cylindrical nutmeg grater in gold filigree, probably London or Birmingham, c. 1780s. Both ends of the cylinder open, one to the grater and the other to hold the nutmeg
Below right Silver teardrop grater by John Albright in London (c. 1720) with beautiful scratch-engraved tulip and five-petalled rose
From the 16th century, nutmeg was an essential component in many apothecaries’ therapeutic balsams which filled their pomanders, many made apple-shaped. Many balsams used nutmeg butter for its perfume and to contain other more volatile scents. Masking foul smells, balsams were considered as protection against plague and other diseases regularly sweeping across Europe. Pomanders were small, opening to several tiny segments with balsams that might be called rose, clove, cinnamon or apoplexy (this last to treat a faint or collapse). Pomanders would be carried by nobility or the wealthy few.
Early designs
In London in the early 1680s someone, name unknown, decided to have made a small silver nutmeg box with a grater for personal use. With nutmeg costing more than its weight in gold the wealthy would often wish to grate their own to avoid adulteration. Some flat steel rasps (often called ‘tobacco rasps’) had beautifully decorated cases and would have been used for nutmeg and ginger.
The habit spread widely in the British Isles, with the first graters being round silver cylinders with a separate grater. Silver graters worked well but would blunt over time – especially from 1697 when the higher Britannia grade silver was required, and steel became more common. One of the earliest forms was a tear-drop, with scratch engraving and a fixed steel grater, the engraving becoming more delicate around the 1700s.
Cowrie shell boxes
To go with the exotic spice a silver-mounted shell might be used as the box, a very few dating from the end of the 17th century, with cowrie shell boxes, without graters, being much more common for snuff a century later.
The cowrie shell above(Cypraea tigris) originated from the wider Indo-Pacific area. This example is silver-mounted and, while not marked, is likely to have been London-made as a rarity in the 1690s. The silver has neat linear and foliate engraving with a dog-tooth border. The hinged grater is held shut by a delicate rotating disc and hook catch but provides access to the nutmeg and to nutmeg gratings.
Gold and gilded designs
Gilding of silver graters, internally or also externally, is not unusual but only a very few were made in gold (although such boxes for snuff, or as vinaigrettes, are a little more common).
The grater (above) appears not to have been used – being gold it would not have been very effective and unlikely to have survived. Perhaps it was made for show, not use. There is another filigree example in the Birmingham Assay Office collection, apparently identical but in silver, not gold.
18th century
During the 18th and into the 19th centuries graters were made in a wide variety of styles including eggs (rococo and plain), barrels, cylinders, and oval and rectangular boxes. Many naturalistic forms were produced, largely in Birmingham, including melons, acorns, nuts, strawberries, pears or clams.
During the second half of the 19th century American forms occur, mostly as melons or in ovoid shape, and tend to be somewhat larger than English boxes. The ‘pumpkin’ shape (above) seems to have been a one-off example from a very well-regarded London silversmiths. The more egg, or ovoid-shaped grater, shown here as a melon (top), is a very rare design.
From the 1760s, oval and navette-shaped boxes appeared, with rectangular boxes often with canted corners or rounded ends from the 1790s, while table graters became increasingly popular from the 1800s.
Enamelled graters
By the 18th century, enamelling had been decorating objects for centuries, with Limoges the French centre from the 16th century. Huguenot religious persecution caused French enamellers and painters to move to London, which developed as a respected centre from about 1750, with the trade widely established in Birmingham and Staffordshire towns by the 1760s. Items made in the 1770s-1780s are often referred to as ‘Bilston-made’ but exceedingly few pieces have impeccable provenance.
At the same dates other nutmeg graters were beginning to be made with wood and with the coquilla nut shell. They might be lathe-turned and often followed the style of the silver boxes.
Above left Silver grater modelled as a pumpkin on a bed of leaves by Edward, Edward Jr., John, and William Barnard, London, 1846. The cover opens with a butterfly finial sharing its hinge with the silvermounted steel grater
Top A silver grater modelled as a cantaloupe melon. Unmarked but its size suggests an American origin, perhaps c. 1865
Above A boat-shaped silver-gilt large table grater made in London in 1823 by Phillip Rundell for George IV and carrying the royal armorial
Above right A multicompartment treen spice box (96mm diameter) with a central nutmeg grater, English, 1800s.
Right Whitewood Tunbridge ware nutmeg grater modelled as a cottage with a chimney and a thatched roof. It is painted with a door, two windows, a bush, a vine, and a bird in a cage. southeast England, c. 1790s-1830s
Left A very early oval, waisted, floral decorated, enamel English box, possibly made St James’s, London, c. 1750, before the short-lived Battersea factory (1753-1756)
Tourist market
From the 17th century, English health resorts and spas such as Bath and Buxton developed. Tunbridge Wells spa grew a wood-based industry in small souvenir ‘toys’ for tourists.
Such Tunbridge ware came to be made more widely available in southeast England. To painted or parquetry decoration might be added mottoes, place names or transfer prints of local scenes.
The 18th-century concept of picturesque (Italian ‘pittoresco’) was popular, and this led to landowners adding rustic cottages to their landscapes. This was reflected in such souvenirs as ‘orné-style’ nutmeg graters (below). Other nutmeg graters in treen were modelled as naturalistic fruits and nuts, as barrels, and as bottles.
Treen spice towers were made in two to six sections. The two-section ones, labelled for nutmeg and ginger, may have a grater in their lid.
The body of the example shown (above) is bent in a circle from laminated thin wood, with thin base and cover of different woods, the latter with coloured veneers added. The nutmeg grater, in a whitewood mount and a dark burrwood base to contain the nutmeg, sits in a central well surrounded by six segments for different spices. There is an internal cover to contain the spices, and originally the small holes would have been for silk or material tabs with which to lift it.
Many kitchen spice boxes have segments for different spices and often a nutmeg grater, placed in the centre in the circular ones. Most were in tin but occasionally wood and Tunbridge or Mauchline origin.
Birmingham centre
In the 19th century, in Birmingham in particular, a concentration of artisans and a degree of mechanisation produced items in multitudinous designs using various materials. They were termed ‘Birmingham Toys’, but referring to small, often decorative, items for adults.
Silver items included many nutmeg graters, often with excellent bright-cut decoration, by makers such as Samuel Pemberton, Joseph Taylor and Nathaniel Mills. Birmingham makers were able to use thinner, silver sheets less expensively than in London, for silver had much more cost than the labour. With nutmeg also being more available, less costly, and used for food and drink from the 1820s, many of the box styles began to be made in base metals in large quantities. In London in 1854 there was even a disabled street seller of tin graters.
Regional variations
A number of silver graters were also made in provincial centres such as Chester, Newcastle, Norwich and York, all of which are greatly sought after, as are Scottish examples where provincial ones may only have local marks. Hallmarking was a legal requirement but there were risks of loss during journeys to and from Edinburgh, while contributing Scottish monies to an English exchequer was an anathema.
With the domination of the early trade in nutmeg by the Dutch, it is surprising that few silver graters appear to have been made in the Netherlands in the 18th century (presumably with rasps still being used), although more occur in the 19th and 20th centuries. Occasional silver graters can be found from other European countries.
Indian market
With the proliferation of European trading and occupation in India, a significant silversmith industry grew up from the 1790s. With India’s role in local spice growing and in trading those imported, it is unsurprising that silver nutmeg graters were made there. Some had makers’ marks and might have ‘tally’ marks placed by the local artisan to ensure payment for his labour. These graters tend to be quite substantial and heavier than similar English pieces, which they might approximately copy.
While unmarked, the grater (right) is almost certainly from Trichinopoly, Tamil Nadu, the work being typical of that town. It is in exceptional condition and has probably never been used.
The decoration is unusual as most Indian graters copy, or are based on, English designs. The cylinder is close-worked in a deep repoussé foliate and floral pattern. After repoussé working from the back the front was then chased. There are depictions of Krishna and Lakshmi.
The lid with an elephant finial clips off the main cylinder, half of which then unfolds to reveal the inner part of the cylinder with the perforations.
The Chinese export silver, largely from Canton, included some nutmeg graters, some of which have a maker’s mark.
Left Rectangular nutmeg grater with exceptional bright-cut decoration, Joseph Taylor, Birmingham, 1817
Right The Edgar grater, patented in 1891, has a cast frame shaped to the grater surface, with a collar to hold the sheet metal holder which has a sprung plate to press against the nutmeg
Below right A large, unfolding cylinder, silver nutmeg grater, India, mid-19th century. The cylinder is close-worked in a deep repoussé foliate and floral pattern
Mechanical versions
While one or two very rare examples of mechanical nutmeg graters were made in silver in England, Scotland, The Netherlands and the USA, very large numbers were made in tin, cast iron, steel, wood and brass, a few being British but the great majority American.
Reasons for this are complicated. The 19th century saw great emigration from Europe to the USA, for political, religious, and social reasons, with food poverty contributing, such as during the Irish potato famine. Such individuals had to be self-sufficient and entrepreneurial, while American industrialisation was occurring a little after Europe’s.
As American patent laws were introduced, hundreds of thousands of applications were made, many for household kitchen items including graters. By this time the very small Caribbean island of Grenada was becoming the second major world producer of nutmeg, exporting quite cheaply to the USA. The grater might be linear or circular, along or around which the nutmeg moved. The advantage of mechanical graters was that all the nutmeg could be used and one’s fingers were protected.
In the example shown above, there is a cast rod and body of the grater which can slife along the curved tin grating surface against which the nutmeg in the body is pressed by a spring. Later versions replaced the cast component with wire rod. Cheaper to make, these are more common, and some have a shaped handle painted black.
John Reckless’s book Nutmeg: Graters, Pomanders and Spice Boxes, is published by ACC Art Books priced £50. Subscribers can save £17.50 on the cover price, turn to page 60 for details.
A Bulgari emerald, diamond and gold serpent ‘Serpenti’ bracelet watch, c. 1965, sold for £300,000 at Christie’s Geneva sale on May 11
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