![Tunbridge ware banjo 1870 at Two Temple Place, Astor House](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Tunbridge_ware_banjo_1870_at_Two_Temple_Place%2C_Astor_House.jpg)
Tunbridge ware is a form of decoratively inlaid
woodwork
Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet making (cabinetry and furniture), wood carving, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning.
History
Along with stone, clay and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials ...
, typically in the form of boxes, that is characteristic of
Tonbridge
Tonbridge ( ) is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Malling, it had an estimated population ...
and the spa town of
Royal Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Rocks. ...
in
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
in the 18th and 19th centuries. The decoration typically consists of a
mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
of many very small pieces of different coloured woods that form a pictorial vignette. Shaped rods and slivers of wood were first carefully glued together, then cut into many thin slices of identical pictorial veneer with a fine saw. Elaborately striped and feathered bandings for framing were pre-formed in a similar fashion.
There is a collection of Tunbridge ware in the
Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery in Tunbridge Wells.
[Tunbridge ware]
Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery. Retrieved from archive at Wayback Machine
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...
2016-12-24.
History
The famous makers of Tunbridge ware were in the Tunbridge Wells area of Kent; their most notable work was from about 1830 to 1900.
Early makers of Tunbridge ware, in Tunbridge Wells in the mid 18th century, were the Burrows family, and Fenner and Co. In the 19th century, around 1830, James Burrows invented a technique of creating mosaics from wooden
tessera
A tessera (plural: tesserae, diminutive ''tessella'') is an individual tile, usually formed in the shape of a square, used in creating a mosaic. It is also known as an abaciscus or abaculus.
Historical tesserae
The oldest known tesserae ...
e. Henry Hollamby, apprenticed to the Burrows family, set up on his own in 1842 and became an important manufacturer of Tunbridge ware, employing about 40 people.
![Edmund Nye and Thomas Barton Plaques - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Edmund_Nye_and_Thomas_Barton_Plaques_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1731817.jpg)
Edmund Nye (1797–1863) and his father took over the Fenner company when William Fenner retired in 1840, after 30 years in partnership with him. Thomas Barton (1819–1903), previously apprenticed at the Wise factory, joined the Nyes in 1836, and worked as Nye's designer; he took over the business in 1863 and continued there until his death.
[
In Tonbridge (near to Tunbridge Wells), George Wise (1703–1779) is known to have had a business in 1746. It continued with his son Thomas, and Thomas's nephew George (1779–1869), who took over in 1806. In its early years the company made articles such as workboxes and tea caddies with prints of popular views; later items had pictures created from mosaics. Their workshop in Tonbridge, ''Wise's Tunbridge Ware Manufactory'', was next to the Big Bridge over the Medway; the building was demolished in 1886 to widen the approach to the bridge.]
Tunbridge ware became popular with visitors to the spa
A spa is a location where mineral-rich spring water (and sometimes seawater) is used to give medicinal baths. Spa towns or spa resorts (including hot springs resorts) typically offer various health treatments, which are also known as balneoth ...
town of Tunbridge Wells, who bought them as souvenirs and gifts. Articles included cribbage boards, paperweights, writing slopes, snuff
Snuff may refer to:
Tobacco
* Snuff (tobacco), fine-ground tobacco, sniffed into the nose
** Moist snuff or dipping tobacco
** Creamy snuff, an Indian tobacco paste
Media and entertainment
* Snuff film, a type of film that shows a murder
Literat ...
boxes and glove boxes.[
At the ]Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary The Crystal Palace, structure in which it was held), was an International Exhib ...
of 1851, Tunbridge ware by Edmund Nye, Robert Russell and Henry Hollamby was shown; Edmund Nye received a commendation from the judges for his work. He exhibited a table depicting a mosaic of a ship at sea; 110,800 tesserae were used in making the picture.
The manufacturers of Tunbridge ware were cottage industries, and they were no more than nine in Tunbridge Wells and one in Tonbridge. The number declined in the 1880s; competent craftsmen were hard to find, and public tastes changed. After the death of Thomas Barton in 1903 the only surviving firm was Boyce, Brown and Kemp, which closed in 1927.[
]
Techniques
''Marquetry
Marquetry (also spelled as marqueterie; from the French ''marqueter'', to variegate) is the art and craft of applying pieces of veneer to a structure to form decorative patterns, designs or pictures. The technique may be applied to case furn ...
'' was an old technique which was continued by Nye and Barton to create images such as birds or butterflies.[
]
''Stickware'' and ''half-square mosaic'' was invented by James Burrows in about 1830: a bunch of wooden sticks of different colours, each having triangular or diamond-shaped cross section, were tightly glued together; in the case of stickware, the resulting block was dried, then turned to form an article such as the base of a pincushion. For half-square mosaic, thin slices were taken from the composite block, and applied to a surface.[
'']Tesselate
A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface, often a plane, using one or more geometric shapes, called ''tiles'', with no overlaps and no gaps. In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to higher dimensions and a variety of ge ...
d mosaic'', was a development by James Burrows of half-square mosaic; it was adopted by George Wise and Edmund Nye. Minute tesserae were used to form a wide variety of geometric and pictorial designs.[
Many sorts of wood were used for the various colours; about 40 were in regular use. Only natural colours were used; green was provided by "green oak", produced by the action of fungus on fallen ]oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...
. Designs for articles were often taken from designs of Berlin wool work
Berlin wool work is a style of embroidery similar to today's needlepoint that was particularly popular in Europe and America from 1804 to 1875. It is typically executed with wool yarn on canvas, worked in a single stitch such as cross stitch or t ...
. [
]
See also
* Intarsia
Intarsia is a form of wood inlaying that is similar to marquetry. The start of the practice dates from before the seventh century AD. The technique of intarsia inlays sections of wood (at times with contrasting ivory or bone, or mother-of-pear ...
* Lath art
Lath art is a form of woodworking folk art for making rustic pictures out of strips out of old "lath" from "plaster and lath" walls. Today it is commonly made from lattice, lumber stickers and weathered lobster traps. Beach scenes and rural scen ...
* Marquetry
Marquetry (also spelled as marqueterie; from the French ''marqueter'', to variegate) is the art and craft of applying pieces of veneer to a structure to form decorative patterns, designs or pictures. The technique may be applied to case furn ...
* ''Opus sectile
''Opus sectile'' is a form of pietra dura popularized in the ancient and medieval Roman world where materials were cut and inlaid into walls and floors to make a picture or pattern. Common materials were marble, mother of pearl, and glass. The ...
''
* Parquetry
Parquet (; French for "a small compartment") is a geometric mosaic of wood pieces used for decorative effect in flooring.
Parquet patterns are often entirely geometrical and angular—squares, triangles, lozenges—but may contain curves. T ...
* Pietre dure
''Pietra dura'' () or ''pietre dure'' () ( see below), called parchin kari or parchinkari ( fa, ) in the Indian Subcontinent, is a term for the inlay technique of using cut and fitted, highly polished colored stones to create images. It is c ...
References
External links
Tunbridge ware
Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery
Tunbridge ware
Article about Tunbridge ware
Rye Castle Museum
Tunbridgeware; museum includes a genuine preserved Tunbridgeware workshop
{{Tonbridge
Decorative arts
Surface decorative techniques in woodworking
Royal Tunbridge Wells
Tonbridge