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The catbird piped in the hazel,
And the harsh kingfisher screamed,
And the crane, in amber and oozy swirls,
Dozed in the reeds and dreamed.
~James, Whitcomb Riley, A vision of Summer
Sections: Overview A Tale of 13 Tiles A Historic Fireplace Production Backstory Sizes and Pricing
4.25 inch square tiles: $68 each
6 inch-square tiles: $77 each
To choose tiles, you can identify them by their column and row in the 28-tile matrix at the top of this page, with A1 being the top left tile and G4 being the bottom right tile.
There are so many mysteries about these tiles. They were hand-painted on British blanks but their style (known as Japonesque) was more popular in America so it's no surprise that they were installed in a period of home in a Boston suburb, eventually finding their way to auction.
American Decorative Arts might seem too general a description for these tile that seem more characteristic of Aesthetic Movement as they were identified at auction -- although there are good reasons to think they were made well before the Aesthetic Movement really took off. Whever the hand-painting was done on the original British blanks from T&R Boote, they’ve made America their home for well over a century now, first in Boston and now in a California historic home - and that is itself a quintessential American pedigree. I love that these tiles that have their own rich history and want to tell you a little about them. Please try to stay awake.
Although the Japanesque waterscape theme was popular in the 1880s, it was more popular in the States and France than in England. Think Christopher Dressler and Oscar Wilde. It’s interesting to note, well for me, that this kind of design was more typical of the Aesthetic Movement in the US than in England. That trivial fact grows in importance later in our discussion.
The original set of 13 was recovered from a Second-Empire home outside of Boston, dating them to the 1870’s to 1880’s if they were installed when the house was built. That is an odd number and we don’t know if the set is complete. Now there are 28 unique images and I'll explain how that happened in just a minute here.
Wear lines around the edges indicate they were in a fireplace surround, most likely a metal insert. Inserts with tile-faces became popular in Victorian and Edwardian England while Second-Empire style homes were most popular in Boston in the 1860s-1880s, so it’s likely, though not guaranteed, that they are original.
Time passes.
In 2018-2019, the tiles were auctioned from the estate of well-known antiques authority, Robert Edwards (see links to his AmericanDecorativeArts website in the Reference section below – it is still up and an amazing resource). Edwards, and the auction listing that quoted him describe them as handpainted in gold and silver, and attributes them to British tilemaker, T&R Boote Co. That conclusions seems to have been drawn from the fact that the blanks have the Boote pattern, but it’s a leap and there are good reasons to think that may not be entirely true. Boote and other tilemakers produced blanks that were popular with third-party artisans and no similar tiles appear in the any of the Boote catalogs that survive.
Moreover, the timeline doesn't work out as one would expect for these tiles to be a T&R Boote product. Although the concentric circles defining the maker’s mark on the 13 tiles indicate that the blanks were made by TR Boote, it isn't a mark pattern widely used when Boote production starting focusing on tile after 1906 (see picture below). Add that these tiles do not even faintly resemble tiles produced by TR Boote at the time. (I've linked to a representative Boote catalog link below). Or any other time for that matter. Boote's tiles at the time were largely majolica. If Boote did produce hand-painted tiles in house, it was most likely a one off or special commission. In this context, it seems not unlikely that Boote sold the blanks to the artist who hand-painted these tiles. (And as an irresistible aside, Morris and Co, used Dutch blanks before they were made in house or purchased from De Morgan). Some representative Boote marks are shown in the picture that follows.
Even for their time, these are rare tiles. A slightly similar set of crane waterscape survive, a set of four, were produced on blanks made by Mintons (see them at Tile Heaven)., and the description there offers a bit more insight into how our tiles may have been made made. The cream white tiles at Tile Heaven are hand-painted and there’s some indication of similar hand-enameling as well. I totally buy into this and especially in the current tiles under discussion, the enamel birds are so different from the waterscape that it looks as if they have just landed.
As for the hand-painting of the trees and grasses in gold and silver, the Tile Heaven discussion makes a persuasive argument for gold and platinum rather than gold and silver, as platinum doesn’t oxidize to black over time as silver does.
In 1997, new homeowners bought the landmark Los Altos California historic home known as The Adams House (three stories, yes, in California) with a rich history, one I am tempted to relay at length here but won’t and will instead include some links below. Do especially try to make time to watch the historical interview. Yes, this is my brief mode when discussing tile. The Adams House, even earlier known as Day House, was built shortly after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. When it was sold in 1997, it sported purple paint and dead rats in the walls. The home has been painstakingly restored the home over the last two decades, and part of that restoration was to bring the fireplace in line with the home’s era.
The originals of the tiles taken as inspiration for this much larger set that we’re talking about here were unavailable, and not enough of them really. The original plan was to make reproductions and reverse them, but that didn't work out. Rather, I was able to create enough tiles from the elements so that the owners could choose those they wanted for their fireplace and hearth. Twelve of the original 13 tiles that were auctioned are shown here.
Some links for the story of this house, the tiles, and T&R Boote:
This Old House feature article on the landmark / historic home.
Interview on the History of the Home (filmed in October 1997, before renovations had started)
T. &. R. Boote Hand Painted Aesthetic Movement Tiles entry at Robert Edwards’ American Decorative Art museum (but my hunch is that Boote only produced the blanks)
American Decorative Art 1860-1960 archive.
T & R Boote LTD catalog 1906 at Internet Archive (Spoiler: None of them look like these.)
Similar tiles (with photos) at Tile Heaven and an interesting discussion that I believe is relevant to these tiles.
T&R Boote Tile Marks at thepotteries.org.
Some tile is a joy to make. This was not. Others may have taken longer, but these were challenging. But it is rewarding to have them done and I am happy with how beautiful they turned out.
I was so excited when I was contacted about the project, which required a period-correct fireplace in an old home. I didn’t realize just how historic a home we were working on. I was sent the 13 photos shown above and with a request for 26 tiles, reversing each of the 13. How hard can it be? Well, harder than one would think. The dimensions of the photos were 236 pixels wide in some cases and despite valiant efforts, that was what we had and no close-ups to be had. So what should have been easy – enlarge, fix color and edges, repair – became reinventing the wheel. Moreover, the original tiles in the photo had degraded somewhat before the photos. The tiles are very shiny, you’ll see that in the photos and why they are photographed on such an angle. The rising fog is subtle but you don't know if it's correct until the tile cools (because color and especially color depth changes with temperature). Alas *many* tiles sacrificed their tiles for the fog.
This is my explanation for why there are so many version of the original tiles: I created each tile from their parent elements, sometimes successfully sometimes less so, back and forth, until we reached the acceptable number of tiles. This was even less fun than you might imagine, with all that added time and shipping, and the project became the poster child for badly-scopepd, not-on-time, and over-budget. In the middle of it all, I lost my sister without warning, which took the joy out of a lot of things for awhile. But now they are done and I hope you love them as much as I do.
William De Morgan Glessner House Fireplace in Chicago
