Silver wine labels add a gleam to the sideboard

Press, 11 February 1986, Page 16

Silver wine labels add a gleam to the sideboard

Collecting with Myrtle Duff

In Britain in Stuart times wine served at the tables of the gentry was contained in lovely white ceramic bottles each with the title of its contents clearly indicated in flourishes of deep cobalt blue. As these gave way to green glass bottles it became increasingly difficult to disicern just what the contents were. The dark colour had a twofold purpose. It helped to preserve the quality of good wine and equally well disguised the murkiness of inferior ones.

It was necessary to provide some means of identification, so labels of parchment, paper or wood were attached. These did nothing to improve the appearance of the bottle or enhance the elegance of the host’s table. Silversmiths, already skilled at providing attractive accoutrements for the tables of the well to do, were not slow to seize the opportunity and some time in the early 1720 s the first narrow, rectangular, or crescent-shaped silver labels were elegantly suspended around the narrow necks of variously shaped bottles. The labels, sometimes referred to merely as “bottle tickets,” were listed by the Assay Office in 1763, but this recognition by the office, which was required by Act of Parliament to control the quality of silver, is often of little use to collectors wishing to ascertain the quality of a piece because items weighing less than ten pennyweight were exempt from hallmarking. Many early labels, however, do show a maker’s mark occasionally accompanied by the lion “passant gardant.” Sterling labels made after 1790 should carry the appropriate hallmark for the period and place of manufacture. Many fine examples were made in London, Birmingham, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Chester, Exeterand Dub-

lin. I like best of all the small, earlier types described by Dean Swift as “silver plates to distinguish bottles of wine by.” Obviously in at least one respect the Dean was a twin soul of Winston Churchill. Wine tickets were made by such famous silversmiths as Hester Bateman, Walter Tweedie, Matthew Boulton, and the great Paul Storr. They appeared in humbler form in Sheffield and Britannia plate, electroplate and even in Pinchbeck — a gold-like alloy of copper and zinc. A law passed in 1860 enabled people to buy single bottles of wine, adequately labelled, for home use but the popularity of the separate and permanent label persisted

and excellent reproductions are still made today. There seems to be no limit to the different types of wines and other beverages catered for. I have seen examples bearing the titles: Port, Madeira, Champagne, White wine, claret, sweet wine, Geneva, Hock, Southern, Burgundy, Lisbon, Bucellas, Rhenish and, among the three exhibited in the Jewellery shop in the old Christchurch street at

Canterbury Museum, one bearing the strange title “Omnium.” This last must surely have been for decorative purposes only as it is hardly an indication of the bottle’s contents. Rarest of all bottle labels are those of white bone china shaped to fit the bottle. Produced in the early nineteenth century, they had gilt edging and black lettering. I have never seen one but would be happy to hear of any collector fortunate enough to possess one.

Also rare and much more beautiful are those of Battersea enamel. Transfer printed in red or purple, they usually show groups of small boys at work around barrels and were originally advertised as “beautiful enamels — bottle tickets with chains for all sorts of liquors and of different subjects.” They were produced for only three years but were later copied in France.

It is unlikely that wine labels of any kind would have been considered a necessity in most New Zealand homes in colonial times but they would certainly have been in evidence in many of the larger establishments enjoyed by some of the wealthier settlers. Those of us not blessed with such heirloombequeathing ancestors can probably find interesting examples among the many excellent antique shops and auction rooms in and around Christchurch.

They are fascinating little things, wonderful to show off with on special occasions or just to provide a little gleam of silver on the sideboard. You may possibly find some at the forthcoming antique dealers’ fair to be held in the Canterbury Horticultural Society’s hall on Friday and Saturday, February 14 and 15.