Pharmacy Jars

[DAVE SMITH]

This is a follow up of Bruce's post about Pharmacy Jars.
The primary purpose of the jars was to store medication (powders, herbs, roots and sometimes pills) at pharmacies, physician offices and apothecaries. While the jars are no longer used for practical purposes, many are considered coveted artwork and are highly collectible. This one has an opaque glass body with a gilded glass mushroom shaped top The jar is worth £5000, but in need of some repair as you can see. I like the look of peeling paint though but I certainly do not want to get involved in restoring her.
Nice to view thats it... This chemist reminds me of Ricks Old Shop. I wonder what happened to the two he had at Fine Gold. Any one know?
Dave

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[BruceJackson]

Wow, another great example.

This one seems to be more cleanly executed. Did you study it closely Dave? I'm assuming it's hand-painted, but being so neat, it makes me wonder if it is hand-done or possibly done using a decal or some other printing technique to do the black linework.

The Rhubarb jar I posted was more amatuerish in execution and when I looked at it, it was clearly hand-done. The design was complex but you could see it was all hand-painted, water gilded and hand-engraved from the inside.

It's hard to imagine that people were doing this type of thing on a daily basis producing large numbers of these display jars. But then again, there is an entire industry producing Chinese snuff bottles that are beautifully reverse painted with very fine designs.

I found this interesting explanation http://www.drugstoremuseum.com/sections ... 20&level=2 of "labels under glass". It seems with many apothecary bottles, like these smaller more common ones, the design was done on the outside and then a thin sheet of glass applied over it for protection.

Here's another great example
http://www.oldplank.com/Product/avi2081/640.html
If you visit the page, it has additional photos and description.
The description says it's done on the inside, but where the gilding is damaged, how is it possible to still see the background color behind it????

[DAVE SMITH]

These are beauties Bruce, I think they are on the outside also. I forgot to mention that the jar I posted was made using a water slide transfer Bruce. My first post crashed on me so I re- wrote this one.
Most of them were black lines either painted by hand or screened then slide into place. Finally handpainting and gilding was done afterwards. I suspect some were completely hand done, but up close on the Jar I posted you would need to be about 6 inchs tall with a ladder to get in and work on the detail inside this jar. Then you would be up and down that ladder to get to the rest of the work at the top, plus you would find it hard to breath in there ,would feel like a fish by the time you were finished.
The letters are perfect on this jar, there's no way you could just lean your arm in this jar and excute work like this but i may be wrong...
They were clever people those Victorians..
Dave

[Patrick Mackle]

I am HIGHLY suspicious that this work was entirely done by hand on the inside of the jar. I would like to see these jars in person and REALLY get a good look.
Just on these two jars alone, the area at the top of the design where the grains of wheat have the fine pointed tufts, the curve of the neck inside and the angle that you would have to hold the brush while viewing each stroke (and what!... upside down as well!) In
my opinion (Doubting Thomas, that's me all the way) there is something missing as to exactly how these treatments were done.
Rick had at least one of these jars up high in his shop for repair, and I am certain that he never got involved in attempting to repair it although we discussed it several times.

To see these jars, and inspect where the gold is missing and the gold peeks though would tell.
I think they look like the gold is in the inside, not the outside, as there would be a shadow edge between the gold on the outside and the paint on the inside.
I think the gold and the crosshatch shading may have been applied as a decal or a transfer to the inside of the jar. In doing this some fragments of the transfer were folded or marred damaging the gold. This was ignored or accepted as part of the difficult process and the backing paint was then applied and is therefore visible where the gold was compromised.
I just find it TOO hard to believe that a person could get all those fine shading hatchmarks to be so perfect while doing them top to bottom with their wrist "crooked" in a jar.
But that's just me. And I'm sure China plate decorators were using transfers at this time, so the method was well known.
Pat (aka D. Thomas)

[DAVE SMITH]

The Jar I posted Pat has all the work inside, I have seen several in chemists around Devon and the London area and all of them had graphics painted on the inside.
I will have to agree I find it hard to see them placing there arm inside and painting this amount of detail. Next time I see the jar I will look for a join. I wonder if the whole graphic was made and slide into place through the mushroom shaped head and then applied using gelatine to stick it to the glass. There may have been a process of laying the gold and paint down front ways round onto a decal sheet and then removing it the same way as a waterslide transfer .Finally painting the inside with a big old brush and some white lead paint. I suspect it was easier than we are thinking as there were lots of them... just a thought.
Dave

[Danny Baronian]

I think it was easier than we think, and believe most were done as water slide transfers; that in no way is meant to diminish the quality and talent it took to complete though.

Rick literally had reams of water slide transfers in the shop under his bench, many all the same. I sometimes wonder if they were from the Palm Transfer company. Most of the sheets were of animals: dogs, sheep, horses and a few scrolls, but they were all transfers.

I'll look through the catalog and see what they offer, but it was a company that's sole product was water slide transfers. The pharmacy bottles are obviously at the top of the scale for that work, and probably achieved much through screen printed transfers and hand work.

Rick had about a half dozen bottles in a cabinet in the shop, Paul said they were on loan to Rick, and had been returned to the owner.

As far as the little men with ladders, that would mean they were done in Ireland as leprechauns didn't migrate that far down into the UK. Either that our you're working at consuming liquid in bottles, but not as fancy.

Whoever they were, they had a lot more talent, and a lot more patience than I!

For more information on water slide transfers, check the green pages under Rick's techniques. I remember Lee Littlewood wrote a how to paper which should be posted there.

Danny

[Patrick Mackle]

Dave,
I CANNOT make myself BELIEVE that someone painted those fine details that neat and clean by reaching into a restricted opening. I will allow that the larger color background areas are most likely added inside the jar by hand.
I THINK that the black line and gold leaf were most likely painted directly in a normal fashiononto a thin layer(film) of fish glue or gum arabic and then applied to the inside of the glass.
Afterward, the exposed thin film was sponged away leaving the black lines and gold. Next would follow the infill of the banners and such, and last, the paint color to back up the inside of the entire jar.
Pat

[BruceJackson]

Pat, I think you are right.

The French ones definitely look like decals to me. They are both identical, the cross-hatching etc. And also the Bismuth jar that started this post is too. Dave said so, plus I found more proof in it's sibling, shown below (same crest design, different word).

But the one I originally posted was definitely hand-done. I looked at it closely. Furthermore, I have a Chinese snuff bottle that has very fine details hand-painted and the neck is only about 10mm wide. They have brushes with a bent handle so it can be done with patience and a touch of masochism.

So I guess, the Victorians were using all these techniques. Sometimes transfers, sometimes hand-painted accordingly to the needs of the job.

I found some further info and a lucky find...a couple of jars for sale at a dealer in my own city! I will go there next week and take a close look for myself and try to see how they were done. They sent me some photos. I've had to shrink them for this board, but here are some shots, and the text of her email to me.

-------

They are both for sale. The Toilet Articles jar is $5500. It is
pre-Federation and came from the estate of an apothecary jar collector.
Apart from that I'm afraid I can't tell you much else. Unfortunately it has
been stuffed with newspaper which has not helped its flaky innards.

The Soda Carb jar is $3200 and sadly has suffered more paint loss than the
other one. Still very lovely though. It is made by Mawson & Thompson who
were London makers of medical related things, but I don't know any more
about them unfortunately.

A recent customer who is a keen collector of all things medical told me that
all these jars were made in England to whatever specification and shipped
over here. Hence the Australia-themed ones etc. It's amazing to think of
the process involved 100 or more years ago of ordering one, having it made,
and waiting for it to get delivered! They would have been quite an
investment.

[DAVE SMITH]

These are lovely Bruce nice picks.
Dave

[Anthony Bennett]

However they are done, they are beutiful.