Today's Purchases

A antique English bone china inkstand in the Sèvres style with undulating light blue ribbon band entwined with intricate garden flowers and saw tooth gilt borders. 

Today we will be viewing two months worth of  "Today's Purchases"  from my favorite monthly estate sale.  I have never walked away from this fabulous sale empty handed. This last two months have been great with wonderful finds. Some of the bargains I pick up from this sale are antique linens, the linen table includes clothing, drapery/curtains and antique linens including napkins, table cloths and bed sheets. All priced at one dollar each. There is always a lot of vintage and antique glassware with most of it priced at a dollar apiece. I have been lucky to find 18th century and early 19th cut crystal on the dollar table. The other antiques I look for is antique porcelain. Usually priced higher then the other items but over the years I have found great porcelain at the sale.  Friday is regular price day, Saturday it's 30% off and my favorite day is Sunday 60% off of the already low prices.  

 

I was really impressed with this inkstand. Although I knew right way it was not French because it is made of bone china a favorite type of English porcelain. The quality of the floral painting and gilt work was top of the line.

This piece of porcelain in unusual because it has a trumpet shape vase in the center of the ink pots.  

I love the beautiful bulbous shape of the ink pot's 

Priced at $95.00 it was a little more then what I wanted to pay for a piece of unsigned porcelain that had condition problems. 

The Sèvres style inkstand was still there on Sunday and I got it 60% off. Now it graces my 1820's Mobile Federal mahogany plantation desk. 

I have been very lucky finding good antique cut glass on the dollar table. This month I was shocked to find 6 hand blown cut glass crystal finger bowls on the dollar table. circa 1830. Finger bowls from this period are hard to find and very rare and costly. I have a collection of early finger bowls but they are mismatch picked up here and there.  

A finger bowl is a bowl of water, usually with lemon or flower petals, which is used for rinsing one's fingers in between courses in a multiple course meal. It is typically served before the dessert course, on a doily on top of the dessert plate. The finger bowl has nearly disappeared in today dinning traditions. The finger bowl was used in the 18th and 19th Century.

The diner dips his finger gently into the warm water to rinse them lightly merely as a means of preparing the hands for the final course of the meal.
The finger bowl is usually accompanied by a fresh napkin, which the diner may wipe his hands. The napkin and finger bowl was then removed by the waiter before the desert was place in front of the diner.

Last month I bought a French Louis Philippe glass that I gave to a friend and this beautiful late 18th century Georgian Anglo-Irish cut glass tumbler with delicate Adam festoons and flowers cut into the glass. This rae glass was found on the dollar table.  

Who says you can't make a dollar stretch theses days? I can't tell you all of the great period glass I passed up when I was younger because it was not a set. I have finally realized the chances of finding a set of 200+ year old matched glass is rare. So I have been putting together a assembled set of period glass.

The 1790's English Georgian silver table spoon handle has bright cut decoration similar to the cut work in the late 18th century tumbler 

I don't usually go for English porcelain but I loved the quality of the floral's and the lapis blue with delicate gilt decoration on theses two English bone china cups.  

Priced a $5. each I got them on Sunday at 60% off. 

Antique books can be a bargain at this sale. I use to be able to wait until Sunday to get Antique books but now I pick then up on regular price day.

This beautiful book titled "La jeunesse de Henri IV" printed in Paris in 1824 was priced at $10.

Henri III de Navarre (vers 1575).
Huile sur toile, Musée national du château de Pau. 

A 18th century leather bound English book of poems was five dollars

On the dollar linen table I found two nice vintage silk scarf's

Also on the dollar linen table were three bright colored wool needlepoint seat cushions. The pattern is perfect for chairs of the late 18th century early 19th century. Geometric and roba de llengües which means “fabric of tongues” in mallorquín, possibly in reference the characteristic zig-zagged patterns. I placed a pair on a pair of early 19th century Baltimore fancy chairs and the single cushion on a Southern made ladder back chair. 

The three needlepoint embroidery seat cushions reminded me of this needlepoint woven by Marie Antoinette after the royal family was imprisoned in the Temple.

I placed this single cushion on a Southern made ladder back chair.  

I loved this large French framed early 20th century copy of a hand colored engraving of a vase with flowers. Priced at $45.00 I waited for Sunday to get it for under 20 bucks. 

I really liked this vantage Decorators Chippendale sofa covered in pink damask with mahogany Marlborough legs. It was priced at $95.00 but was still there on Sunday for me to grab up for under $50.00