Arts & Antiques

Mendip expert’s choice – looking at Mouseman

ONDecember 11th, Killens are staging their Antiques and Collectables sale and this month, Niall Fry, one of the valuers at the auction rooms, looks at two items of “Mouseman” that are being offered.

The Yorkshire craftsman Robert Thompson (1876-1955) is better known by a single name – Mouseman. Born in Kilburn in 1876, the son of the village's jobbing carpenter and stonemason, Thompson was inspired by the splendid medieval carvings at Ripon Cathedral to create his own oak furniture in the British vernacular tradition.

The use of the adze for shaping and smoothing surfaces gave his furniture its distinctive rippled appearance. However, it was through an engaging trademark – a rodent – that Thompson is best remembered.

With a loyal UK collecting base – and a growing number of fans overseas –Mouseman furniture of all periods has a strong following on the antiques market.

Mouseman items pass through our auction rooms fairly regularly and we are fortunate to have two items entered for our sale in December. An ashtray is being offered with a guide of £80–£120 and an early oak table lamp with a guide of £600–£800.

Are you looking to sell items? Valuations can be undertaken on a dropin basis at the auction rooms between 10am and 3pm each weekday and Killens have professional valuers and experts on hand to advise. Alternatively, valuers are able to conduct free home visits.

Niall Fry

Contact the team at Killens on 01749 840770 or email enquiries@mendipauctionrooms.co.uk for further assistance

A personal view of the Guild

WHAT’S in a name? So said Juliet in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. It's a phrase often used to suggest that labels do not, in themselves, carry worth and names do not hold meaning.

Well, excuse me, in this case the Somerset Guild of Craftsmen conveys a whole lot of meaning, history and significance. We often carry an article concerning the guild and it's easy to assume readers know what it's all about. Just in case that's not so... read on.

The Guild was founded in 1933 and is a true guild, being an association of makers with a board of trustees and a master of the guild duly elected by the members. But don't be fooled into thinking that makes it, in any sense, old fashioned. Whilst there's tradition at the core it's a dynamic organisation, full of innovation and creativity.

Craftsmen, the members, have to submit work for assessment and be judged by peers to ensure high standards before being allowed to join. Work can be sold at the gallery off Broad Street in the heart of Wells.

This makes for a diverse collection ranging over many different crafts and all of it is made by the members of the guild. Members are also delighted to be approached for commission work and there's a developing online shop: https://www.somersetcraftguild.co.uk/copy-of-shop/

Members have to live in or around Somerset (we welcome a few members who have crept across the border!). It truly is a local resource representing the best of the county.

Chris Walters, Guild member

SOUGHT BY LOCAL COLLECTOR STAMP COLLECTIONS, ALBUMS AND POSTAL HISTORY

PLEASE CONTACT IAN APPLIN HOME (after 7pm): 01275 331821 • MOBILE: 07768 093576 EMAIL: ipakeeper@gmail.com

The man who invented the Christmas card

CHRISMAS– or rather how we celebrate it – is something else we can add to the long list of things for which we have the Victorians to thank. Much of what we think of as a Merrie Old English Christmas has more to do with the writings of Charles Dickens than our real medieval ancestors. For the Georgians, Christmas was an antiquated curiosity but, with their love of all things hearth and home, the Victorians saw it as a golden opportunity to really stamp their mark on the Christian festival.

By 1850 there were Christmas cards, crackers and the sense that Christmas was a time for family and friends. And, as Tiny Tim observed: “God bless us, every one.”

Even some of our most established traditions have Victorian origins. Henry Cole was a man of his time, the sort of versatile Victorian who could achieve just about anything he set his mind to.

He helped invent the modern postal system, designed tea sets, organised the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace and still found time to establish the Victoria and Albert Museum. He moved in elite social circles and had lots of friends.

But at Christmas 1843 those friends were causing him much worry. The problem was their letters. The custom of sending a long letter to a friend or loved one at Christmas was enjoying renewed popularity.

Everybody was sending Christmas letters and it was considered bad manners not to reply to them. For a busy man like Cole, this was a problem. As the pile of unanswered letters grew, he fretted over what he should do. Cole hit on an ingenious idea. He approached an artist friend, J.C. Horsley, and asked him to create an illustration With CHRIS YEO of a family enjoying their Christmas lunch. He then had copies made by a London printer on stiff card. Each card was printed with the greeting “A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year To You.” It was the first Christmas card. A thousand cards were printed but very few have survived. In 2001 a card, signed and sent by Henry Cole himself sold for a record £22,500 at auction. Merry Christmas!

Ken’s a-peal

Embroidery project has hidden stories to tell

KEN Webb is feeling lonely – he’s the last bell ringer left at St Mary’s Church in Compton Dando. Ken has to call in the bell ringing team from nearby All Saints in Publow when the bells have to be rung for a Sunday service.

It’s reckoned bell ringing is good for you, helping agility, coordination and reaction time, plus you can get a full body cardiovascular workout by walking up the stairs to the tower. But Ken says it’s not good for you if you are the sole bell ringer in a church.

He’s now drawn up an advert to attract new ringers. Bell ringing practice is on Mondays starting at 7.30pm and the bells are rung once a fortnight at the morning service.

Details: Ken Webb 07952 264601 email Kenwebb44@btinternet.com

THE Connect Centre in Wells has played host to one of the most unusual arts projects the city may have ever seen to date.

The Red Dress Embroidery Project has taken artist Kirstie MacLeod and a red silk dress around the world, providing an artistic platform for women around the world, many of whom are marginalised and live in poverty, to tell their personal stories through embroidery.

The dress went on show at the Connect Centre in Wells, which works with disadvantaged people from the Mendip area as well as offering a twice-weekly community lunch and hosting other events.

Kirstie, who lives near Glastonbury, said: “Our hope was that the dress would attract people from all walks of life to visit and to meet each other.”

From 2009 to 2021, pieces of the dress have travelled the globe being continuously embroidered onto. Constructed out of 73 pieces of burgundy silk dupion, the garment has been worked on by more than 240 women – and at least five men – from 28 countries, with all 136 commissioned artisans paid for their work. The rest of the embroidery was added by 108 willing participants at various groups, exhibitions and events.

Embroiderers include women refugees from Palestine; victims of war in Kosovo, Rwanda, and DR Congo; impoverished women in South Africa, Mexico, and Egypt; women in Kenya, Japan, Paris, Sweden, Peru, Czech Republic, Dubai, Afghanistan, Australia, Argentina, Switzerland, Canada, Tobago, USA, Russia, Pakistan, Wales, Colombia, and the UK, as well as upmarket embroidery studios in India and Saudi Arabia. l The dress will go on show at the Goddess House in Glastonbury from Wednesday, December 1st to Friday, December 3rd and at ACE Arts in Somerton on Saturday, January 8th and Sunday, January 9th before being sent to Pakistan in February.

Kirstie Macleod and the red dress One of the embroidered panels