Michelle Galler • December 7, 2016

The whirligig, an object that spins or twirls, may have started as a farmer’s weathervane, but it evolved into a recognized category of American folk art. Simply put, a whirligig […]

Michelle Galler • October 26, 2016

The setting sun shrouded the typical early colonial home in darkness. For the ordinary American colonist, bright lighting simply was not worth the candle; the need for more light was […]

Michelle Galler • June 22, 2016

Here in the mid-Atlantic states the ubiquitous seashell symbolizes the arrival of summer. Wherever there was watery life there is …

Michelle Galler • June 8, 2016

In the mid-1700s, men’s waistcoats had several pockets and it was fashionable to carry a watch in each pocket …

Michelle Galler • May 5, 2016

As so aptly described by one local denizen, “Life in Little Washington reminds one of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon or Jan Karon’s mythical Mitford.” Rappahannock County, Virginia, with its quirky villages, unspoiled scenery, outdoor activities and stellar cultural and culinary offerings, is close enough for a daytrip or a world-away weekend.

Rappahannock Central, a beautifully restored 1930s apple-packing facility in Sperryville, in the far western part of the county, is a bustling crossroads of art galleries — including the studios of River District Arts — and local shops. There is even a brewery and a distillery.

On the culinary side, Heritage Hollow Farms’ new storefront offers 100-percent ecologically farmed grass-fed and grass-finished beef, lamb and pork. Mike Peterson, a former executive sous chef in Aspen, and his wife Molly, a professional photographer who fell in love with the county’s scenery, discovered that they could work together to produce succulent food, raised with integrity. They do not use antibiotics or hormones, and their livestock live comfortable lives on healthy pasturage and non-GMO feed.

Also relatively new is Wild Roots Apothecary, which offers slow brewed, handcrafted herbal and floral syrups at its creatively earthy store. Their artisanal syrups combine Lemon-Cardamom, Elderberry-Lavender and Rosehip-Hibiscus flavors. They also offer botanical teas and locally sourced body nectars.

Known for the five-star Inn at Little Washington, the county offers other overnight accommodations — less pricey, but cozy and charming in their own ways.

Gary Aichele, that very same quoted “local denizen,” happens to run the Gay Street Inn with his wife Wendy. The 1850s farmhouse, on the edge of Little Washington, offers Shenandoah Mountain views, a relaxing stay in beautifully appointed rooms and a hearty country breakfast. The front porch and serene gardens are the perfect spots for morning coffee or afternoon wine.

Also in Little Washington, the Foster Harris House, an early-20th-century farmstead, offers high-end amenities and delicious private dining. One evening in 2004, Diane and John MacPherson decided the time was right to flee their corporate lives and open a business that combines their passions for food, wine, cycling and entertaining.

The rooms are elegant and comfortable and dinner unites the elements that inspire chef John’s culinary muse: fruits and vegetables from the rich soil of Rappahannock County, surprising flavors, bold splashes of color and family traditions. With just one seating a night in the intimate dining room, the five-course, prix-fixe menu is available by reservation for $89 per person or $129 with wine pairings (tax and gratuity not included) every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The Foster Harris House also offers two- or five-day Tours de Epicure, as much about good food and wine as they are about pedaling through the beautiful countryside.

Just outside of town, surrounded by lush pastures with views to the Blue Ridge Mountains, sits the Middleton Inn. Built in 1840 by Middleton Miller, who designed and manufactured the Confederate uniform during the Civil War, the property is a classic country estate where your pet can be as comfortable as you are.

Even though Rappahannock County has fewer than 7,000 inhabitants, it is home to two theaters. The arts are intricately woven into the texture of the community, thanks in part to RAAC (the Rappahannock Association for the Arts and the Community). RAAC promotes a series of cultural programs throughout the year and supports the RAAC Community Theatre. May will feature playwright John Logan’s Tony Award-winning play “Red,” about egotistical genius Mark Rothko, the Abstract Impressionist painter.

Just across the street is the intimate 213-seat Theatre at Washington, Virginia, presenting an eclectic mix of musical and dramatic performances, usually on weekends. This spring’s line-up includes Grammy Award-winning acoustic guitarist Laurence Juber (June 11) and flutist Emlyn Johnson in a celebration of the centennial of Shenandoah National Park (June 17).

Listed by Trip Advisor as the number-one thing to do in Little Washington, R.H. Ballard Shop and Gallery is always stocked with unique and wonderful things to buy. The shop combines quality French textiles, great design, vintage finds and fine art. Robert Ballard, who runs the shop with his wife Joanie, is a painter who originally hails from San Francisco. He shows some of his own works in the gallery, as well as art by local, regional and nationally recognized artists.

There is always plenty do see and do in Rappahannock County, and springtime is a most beautiful time of the year for exploring the county.

Michelle Galler owns homes in Georgetown and in Washington, Virginia, and is a realtor and antiques dealer in both locales. [gallery ids="102222,130537,130532,130524,130517,130510,130562,130502,130550,130545,130556" nav="thumbs"]

Michelle Galler • May 4, 2016

In the largely agrarian society of colonial America, what we think of as common garden tools were extremely valuable in planting and cultivating the beds and fields that fed whole families. As opposed to modern, mass-produced garden tools, the garden tools of old were custom made and held dear by the families who owned them. People’s livelihoods directly depended on their garden tools.

Until the 16th century, those tools were simple, basic and heavy, having evolved from agricultural implements used for hundreds of years. Colonists built raised, rectangular gardens right outside their homes. These cottage gardens were intensely cultivated and narrow enough to be tended from either side. The beds were filled with plants focused on function — herbs, vegetables, and flowers for dyes and fragrance.

Early New England settlers believed that gardens should be austere and utilitarian, and that flowers with no use were frivolous and extravagant, so each plant was valued for its usefulness, not its beauty. Although a few gardens were larger and better furnished than the others, the typical version was that of a small garden plot planted with leeks, onions, garlic, melons, English gourds, radishes, carrots, and cabbages, next to the humble colonial dwelling.

Urged by a higher spiritual need to remind themselves of all they left behind, 17th-century gardeners began to transplant wildflowers into their gardens. As the colonies became more prosperous in the 18th century, they separated flowers out of the vegetable gardens and into flower beds.

By the 18th century, Williamsburg was the capital of the wealthiest and most populous of the colonies, and the center of cultural life in Virginia. Gentry and artisans alike designed the grounds surrounding their homes as their personal stages on which to present themselves to passersby. Gardens evolved from necessity to expressions of beauty through art and nature, and sometimes as a display of private status. Most houses had a large front garden composed purely of flowers and/or lawn running down a path to their front gate, with the vegetables tucked away out of sight. The garden layout began to resemble the American landscape seen today.

In colonial capitals like Williamsburg and Annapolis, garden plot demarcations were actually required by colonial law to be built around each lot. Gardeners used line reels to demarcate a space within a garden or to set the dimensions of the garden itself. The end of the reel was inserted in the ground, the string on the top portion was pulled until the gardener had unwound sufficient string to mark his or her line on the land.

By the 1850s, more efficient production and transportation made tools more widely available to the masses. With their earthy patinas, organic materials and sculptural shapes, many of the garden tools of yore are popular with today’s collectors. An old, wooden pitchfork leaning in a corner, or a rake repurposed for holding clothes or wine glasses make interesting conversation pieces.

In America, rakes were very expensive and became an important possession of many 18th century families. Early wooden rakes with their warm patina can cost upwards of $150, and those pitchforks with animal antler tines can be priced in the hundreds. Those wooden line reels used to set old fence lines are difficult to find and are priced accordingly, at upward of $400, though more wrought iron models survived and are less expensive. The handy shield-shaped digging spade with a hand hewn wooden handle is a sought-after collector’s item and can be priced in the $150 range.

Dibbers, pencil-shaped tools for making planting holes, were usually made by the gardener himself out of branches of various diameters, depending on the sizes of the holes he needed. Some dibbers were made from old pipes or the salvageable parts of other tools.

Gathering baskets are one of most ubiquitous old implements. Historically, basket makers crafted their products from a variety of dried reeds and with a specific use in mind. There were wide-open baskets for gathering and carrying flowers and vegetables and large sturdy bins for storing root vegetables. Today, old baskets, especially those with original painted surfaces, can carry a price tag that may run into the thousands of dollars. They are especially popular because they can be easily recycled to fill many modern uses and can add a warm decorative touch to a room.

Garden tools have co-evolved with human society and have served mankind well. When you look into the history of some of the most common garden tools we use today — their images and descriptions in advertisements and old catalogs — you find that not much has changed in hundreds of years. What has changed, though, is the value placed on those implements.

Michelle Galler is an antiques dealer, design consultant and realtor based in Georgetown. Her shop is in Rare Finds, in Washington, Virginia. Contact her at antiques.and.whimsies@gmail.com.

Michelle Galler • February 18, 2016

Between 1720 and 1820, more than 100,000 German-speaking people entered the port of Philadelphia seeking a life free from religious persecution. Most were peasants and small farmers, and they eventually moved from the city to the fertile soil of southeastern Pennsylvania. Later generations traveled further south into the Shenandoah Valley, Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas.

Although agriculture was their major industry, as their society became more firmly rooted, farmer-craftsmen turned some of their energies to producing and decorating the many articles of daily life, including “fraktur” — illuminated documents recording family events. The name fraktur derives from the angular, fractured appearance of the familiar Gothic typeface used in deeds and official edicts in 16th-century Europe.

The fraktur artist held several positions within the Pennsylvania German community. As the representative of learning, he was often the schoolmaster as well as clergyman. With his skills in drawing and writing, he performed such services as illustrating books and hymnals and drawing up important documents. These sunny creations contrasted with much of the religious art of the time, since sin and pain were rarely depicted.

Pennsylvania Germans usually made fraktur for personal use, and instead of hanging fraktur in their homes, people most often rolled-up fraktur documents and tucked them away, pasted them underneath the lids of storage chests, or kept them neatly folded inside books and Bibles. The great care many Pennsylvania Germans took to preserve these documents is a touching reminder that fraktur commemorated important and personal life events.

Fraktur — especially birth and baptismal certificates — became very popular by the late 1700s. By 1780, various communities developed fraktur printing presses in order to create more fraktur works in a shorter amount of time. Many professional fraktur artists used these printed “blanks” to keep up with client demand. Artists continued to personalize each mass-produced document.

These printed forms were often sold by itinerants and at rural stores. A skilled calligrapher, perhaps the itinerant himself, would fill in the clients’ personal information and often hand-color or embellish the printed designs with borders and outlines of birds, flowers and other decorative flourishes. Although they are not strictly speaking “certificates,” since no one in authority signed them, they have been regarded as legal documents. Since law in the old country required such documents, the tradition was continued in America.

Fraktur are some of the earliest examples of folk art found in the Shenandoah Valley. Though most Shenandoah Valley fraktur artists did not sign their work, several did. Peter Benhart, a Rockingham County schoolteacher and mail carrier, was one of the most prolific. He worked from about 1796 to 1819 and rode from his home near Keezletown to Winchester every other Wednesday to begin his postal route. He arrived in Rockingham County by Friday and finished the route in Staunton on Saturday. Bernhart functioned as a post rider over this course for nearly thirty years, creating fraktur for clients along his route.

He nearly always included not only his name, but also the date of when he made the fraktur. Many of his paintings were created on pre-printed blanks produced for him by local printers. He would carry the forms with him on his routes, and when called upon to produce fraktur, he would fill in the blanks with the pertinent information, then embellish the document with by painting around the borders. Although his paintings were often crudely executed, including poor spelling, his creations showed a unique style with amusing designs and bright colors.

Another Valley fraktur artist, who has only been identified as simply the Stony Creek Artist, produced works in German and English. Often, his paintings depicted cherubs, drawn-back curtains and hearts.

These Valley fraktur artists provide an important key to the important families of the Shenandoah Valley during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Traditional fraktur designs of the 19th century feature pomegranates, angels, trees, flowers and birds. The intricacy of design, selection of color and particular historical relevance to a family or place are factors that affect the current price of a painting. Prices of fraktur done by preeminent artists have soared into the $10,000 to $50,000 range. Although a piece by Peter Bernhart recently sold at auction for $15,500, against its estimate of $8,000-$12,000, some beautifully rendered examples by lesser-known artists can still be found for under $1,000.

Michelle Galler is an antiques dealer, design consultant and realtor based in Georgetown. Her shop is in Rare Finds, in Washington, Virginia. Contact her at antiques.and.whimsies@gmail.com.

Michelle Galler • January 11, 2016

Early Americans were close to medieval in their dining habits. Even though people have been sharing communal meals with their families and friends from the beginning of civilization, early meals in Colonial America were more a matter of crude survival.
Most foods in the colony-building 17th century consisted of one-pot dishes like stews, porridges and puddings, meals that are suited for cooking over an open fire. Tableware and dining utensils were scarce; hence, meals were eaten from shared utensils, bowls and wooden cups, called noggins, passed from mouth to mouth. Although using communal tableware was borne of necessity, it was also customary, as the Puritan ethic espoused frugality and simplicity. It was related that a newcomer to one New England town brought individual trenchers for each member of his family and was admonished by the town magistrates for being too extravagant.
A typical family ate off trenchers, a 10- or 12-inch rectangular block of wood about three inches thick with a bowl shape carved into it. After the main course, the trencher was turned over and dessert was served on the clean side. A poor, rural family might eat from a trencher that was actually a table of sorts made from a long block of wood with a “V” shaped trough cut through the center into which the stew was poured and shared by all. Some families dispensed with trenchers altogether, and ate “spoon meat,” roasted meat served on thick slices of bread.

Prior to the American Revolution, most Americans ate with spoons made from shell, horn, wood or gourds. Sharp knives, also used as weapons, were initially used less to cut meat, than to anchor it down while people tore off a piece with their hands and shoved it into their mouths. The blunt-tipped knives imported to the colonies were the precursors to the fork and often food was brought to the mouth on the flat edge of the knife. Until the late 18th century, forks were still uncommon in the colonies and deemed a curiosity. Since the new blunt knives made it difficult to spear food, the two-prong fork was used to hold meat while being cut — but still not so helpful for holding bites of food.

By the middle of the 18th century, early Americans began to acquire more wealth and mass-produced dining utensils were becoming more available and affordable. A sign of refinement was the appearance of individual place settings. The simple fork significantly refined table manners, as hands were no longer used to reach for food and greasy fingers no longer wiped on the tablecloth.

Although forks had been used by the French court as early as the 14th century, they were used only when eating exotic foods or foods that could easily stain the hands. By the 17th century, travelers had spread the word about this eating invention. It became commonplace throughout Europe, but the colonies still refused to use the fork. They looked upon it as an effeminate and useless curiosity. Finally, by the early 19th century, the three- and four-prong forks, developed in England and Germany, were becoming the primary eating utensil in America and marked the real beginning of civilized dining by Americans.

Meanwhile, fewer middle and upper class folk ate from a common serving bowl. Pewter plates began replacing wooden trenchers, and many affluent households did not use woodenware at all. However, people living far out in the newer settlements, away from transportation centers used it for about 200 years. China first made an appearance in the early 18th century, but was found only in wealthier households — and it rarely came out of the china closet.

By the middle of the 19th century, dining in America was not just about eating. Victorians, with their love of making any simple gathering an event, were the first to identify a specific room for dining. They introduced a bewildering assortment of silver flatware, a far cry from the simple knives of their ancestors. There was a specialized utensil for every conceivable use. There was a spoon for cream soup, a special spoon for clear soup, luncheon knives, dinner knives and coffee spoons, dinner spoons,

dessert spoons and so on. There were so many dining accoutrements that it seemed there was scarcely room on the table for the food.
Even though the United States was one of the last regions to adopt spoons and forks, we still tuck into great fried chicken using our most efficient eating tools — those located on the ends of our arms.

Michelle Galler (antiques.and.whimsies@gmail.com) is an antiques dealer, design consultant and realtor based in Georgetown. Her shop is in Rare Finds, in Washington, Virginia.

Michelle Galler • October 29, 2015

Thanks to Halloween, this is the month of the macabre, which makes it a perfect time of year to discuss antique mourning jewelry.

Death came early and often in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. In Colonial America, or the Georgian era (1714 to 1837), the specter of death was persistent. Much art and jewelry design was focused on the concept of Memento Mori: the medieval practice of pondering mortality and the salvation of the soul. Through the 1700s, jewelry of this type often featured ghoulish images of skulls, gravediggers and coffins.

Although people had made jewelry to commemorate death for centuries, it wasn’t until the reign of Queen Victoria that pieces were made to remember a dead individual. Before photography, the only way for people to remember a loved one was to create a touchstone that could be carried every day as a reminder.

In 1861, after the death of her beloved Albert, Queen Victoria went into perpetual mourning. The queen’s epic sadness over her loss was a major catalyst for mourning fashion. Her reign marked the height of the mourning industry.

For decades, Queen Victoria wore only black clothing and matching mourning jewelry, popularizing the tradition both in England and in the U.S. During her reign, mourning grew into a respectful, yet fashionable practice. Women became quite interested in wearing attractive mourning dresses and jewelry.

The etiquette for mourning fashion became so stringent, elaborate and confusing that magazines published guides and schedules, describing, for example, how a widow’s mourning was expected to last two years. During the first year, she was allowed to wear only black clothing and jewelry, which led to a tremendous rise in the popularity of jet — black, fossilized coal — in jewelry design.

Although black was the obvious color for mourning jewelry, certain distinctions were made about the piece’s surface. Since the earliest stages of mourning were strictly regulated, it was considered poor taste to wear highly polished jet too soon. So matte-finished pieces were made for early mourning.

Black enamel, along with jet, was the hallmark of most — but not all — mourning jewelry. Pieces that used white enamel meant that the deceased woman was unmarried and pearls signified the loss of a child.

During the Victorian period, symbols of death softened into angels, clouds, weeping willows and urns. Phrases like “in memory of” and “lost but not forgotten” were frequently used in jewelry designs along with gemstones.

As the middle class rose and desired more affordable options, bits of the deceased’s hair were worked into more pieces. Hairwork refers to jewelry and art made from woven human hair. The intimacy of preserving someone’s memory by using a lock of his or her hair appealed to many.

The popularity of hairwork created a large market for mass-produced gold fittings for specially commissioned items using the deceased’s hair. People made wreaths, men’s watch fobs, bracelets, necklaces and brooches out of human hair. During the mid-1800s, with the increased demand for hairwork as mourning jewelry, there was widespread distrust of jewelers who neglected to use the deceased’s hair in “custom-made” pieces. In fact, more than 50 tons of bulk human hair were imported to England annually to be used by the country’s jewelers.

The high mortality rate of the First World War led to a decline in the formality of mourning. This period of mass human attrition blurred the lines of mourning regulations. Families felt personally impacted by the Great War. Death was closer, a part of day-to-day life. Public mourning codes became a burden. So many people were trying to cope with grief that mourning fashion and strict codes were increasingly viewed as affectations.

By the 1920s, people were tired of drab mourning clothing and even the concept of a regulated mourning period seemed antiquated. The fashion of mourning was soon abandoned.

Our own Tudor Place has an extensive collection of hairwork mourning jewelry, including a gold-edged locket containing locks of George Washington’s hair. In 2010, curators discovered a locket from 1845 in the Tudor Place archives with a lock of child’s hair that belonged to an ancestor of the Armisteads, the last owners of the property.

Michelle Galler, a specialist in American primitives and folk art, lives in Georgetown. Her shop is in Rare Finds in Washington, Virginia. Reach her at antiques.and.whimsies@gmail.com. [gallery ids="102333,125767" nav="thumbs"]

Michelle Galler • July 16, 2015

Sleeping was a textile-heavy experience in the 1800s. Textiles were a primary component of being able to sleep in a comfortable and warm environment. Beds were designed as fully draped enclosures, with curtains, valances and a coverlet. The coverlet was the topmost covering on the bed.

Until the 1820s, most coverlets were hand-loomed at home. Professionally woven coverlets gained popularity between 1820 and the Civil War — the majority were made between 1800 and the 1880s. Woven mostly by men, who trained as carpet weavers in England and Germany, then set up shops along the East Coast, these coverlets were affordable enough for rural and middle-class Americans.

Imported indigo and madder dyes, and other natural plant dyes, provided the pigment for most 19th-century coverlets. Bloodroot and dogwood produced red, bittersweet yielded orange and butternut bark produced brown. They were often made of a combination of wool and linen called linsey-woolsey — an important fabric in Colonial America due to the relative scarcity of wool. But some were made of bleached cotton.

The earliest coverlets were woven on a rather primitive “four harness” loom, which limited the weaver’s ability to produce complex patterns. The float work or overshot coverlet was woven in one long narrow piece, then cut width-wise and sewn together to make a textile wide enough for a bed.

In the early 1800s, the newly invented Jacquard loom made its way from France. The modernized technology — actually a loom attachment — allowed elaborate, complex patterns and images to be incorporated into coverlets. The coverlet progressed from a purely functional item, used primarily to provide privacy and warmth in early American homes, to one of aesthetic beauty.

These colorful coverlets displayed elaborate patterns, with images of birds and plants, and often the name of the owner and the weaver. Characteristic of many early woven coverlets were their interesting and informative inscriptions, which varied in placement, content and complexity. They could denote the weaver’s name, the location of the loom, the date, a bible verse or political slogan, a commemoration and sometimes the owner’s name. Usually the inscription was woven in backwards and forwards, allowing it to be read from either side of the coverlet.

Both men and women ordered and purchased coverlets. Since comparatively few weavers were women, when a woman’s name is inscribed into a coverlet, it is generally thought to be the owner’s name, not the weaver’s. But if a man’s name appears on a coverlet it could be the name of the owner or the weaver.

The prices of antique coverlets can span from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousand, depending on the design, condition and provenance. Antique coverlets were treasured by families through many generations, and were frequently mentioned in wills and stored for future descendants in dower chests. They are true American heirlooms.
Michelle Galler has been an antiques dealer and a consultant for more than 25 years. Her business is based in Rare Finds in Washington, Virginia. If you have questions or finds, email her at antiques.and.whimsies@gmail.com
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