|
Inkstand
An inkstand is a stand, tray, or casket used to house writing instruments. They were generally portable objects, intended to sit on the table or desk where the person was writing. They were useful household objects when quill pens and dip pens were in everyday use. At the most basic, an inkstand had a pen, a tightly-capped inkwell, and a sand shaker for rapidly drying the ink after it was written on the page. Other items might also be included. A penwiper (a cloth for wiping blobs of ink off the end of the pen) would often be included, and from the mid-nineteenth century, an inkstand might have a box or compartment for steel nibs used in dip pens. They might have a box or drawer for sealing wax and other necessities, such as a candle and a candle holder to use while melting the wax wafers. Inkstands could be made of any material. In middle-class households, they might be made of tin, wood, pewter or brass. In wealthier households, they were most often made of silver o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syng Inkstand
The Syng inkstand is a silver inkstand used during the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the United States Constitution in 1787. Besides paper documents, it is one of four still-existing objects that were present during the Constitutional Convention, along with the Liberty Bell, the chair that George Washington sat in as the convention's presiding officer, and Independence Hall itself. The inkstand was made by Philip Syng in 1752 for the provincial assembly of Pennsylvania. It is both a work of art and an important historical artifact, as it was used by such prominent Founding Fathers of the United States as Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, James Madison, and the other signers of the founding documents. Desktop inkstands hold ink for quill pens and other tools that require ink. Ornate versions include a pen holder, an inkpot, a candle to melt sealing wax, and a pot similar to a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Syng
Philip Syng (September 29, 1703May 8, 1789) was, like his namesake father, Philip Syng, Sr. (1676–1739), a renowned silversmith who created fine works in silver and sometimes gold for the wealthy families of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1752 he created the Syng inkstand, which was used to sign the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution in 1787. A member of the St. John's Lodge of Freemasons in Philadelphia, he served as the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in 1741. Biography Philip Syng was born in Cork, Ireland, to Philip Syng, a silversmith by trade, and Abigail Murdock Syng. In 1714 the Syng family emigrated to the United States staying first in Annapolis, Maryland, and then moving to Philadelphia. Philip Syng, Sr. trained all three of his sons as silversmiths. Besides becoming one of the highly-sought Philadelphia silversmiths, Philip Syng, Jr. was a member of Benjamin Franklin's Junto, and was a founder of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Declaration Of Independence
The Declaration of Independence, formally The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen States of America in the original printing, is the founding document of the United States. On July 4, 1776, it was adopted unanimously by the Second Continental Congress, who convened at Pennsylvania State House, later renamed Independence Hall, in the Colonial history of the United States, colonial capital of Philadelphia. These delegates became known as the nation's Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Fathers. The Declaration explains why the Thirteen Colonies regarded themselves as independent sovereign states no longer subject to British colonization of the Americas, British colonial rule, and has become one of the most circulated, reprinted, and influential documents in history. On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed the Committee of Five, including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman, who were charged w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tray
A tray is a shallow platform designed for the carrying of items. It can be fashioned from numerous materials, including silver, brass, sheet iron, paperboard, wood, melamine, and molded pulp. Trays range in cost from inexpensive molded pulp trays which are disposable and inexpensive melamine trays used in cafeterias, to mid-priced wooden trays used in a home, to expensive silver trays used in luxury hotels. Some examples have raised galleries, handles, and short feet for support. Trays are flat, but with raised edges to stop things from sliding off them. They are made in a range of shapes but are commonly found in oval or rectangular forms, sometimes with cutout or attached handles with which to carry them. A more elaborate device is the tray table, which is designed to accommodate a tray, or to serve as a tray itself. There are two primary kinds of tray tables. The TV tray table is typically a small table, which may have legs that fold to allow it to be carried like a tray. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Porcelain
Porcelain (), also called china, is a ceramic material made by heating Industrial mineral, raw materials, generally including kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The greater strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arise mainly from Vitrification#Ceramics, vitrification and the formation of the mineral mullite within the body at these high temperatures. End applications include tableware, ceramic art, decorative ware such as figurines, and products in technology and industry such as Insulator (electricity), electrical insulators and laboratory ware. The manufacturing process used for porcelain is similar to that used for earthenware and stoneware, the two other main types of pottery, although it can be more challenging to produce. It has usually been regarded as the most prestigious type of pottery due to its delicacy, strength, and high degree of whiteness. It is frequently both glazed and decorated. Though definitions vary, po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pounce (calligraphy)
Pounce or sand is a fine powder, most often made from powdered cuttlefish bone or sandarac resin, that was used both to dry ink and to sprinkle on a rough writing surface to make it smooth enough for writing. This was especially needed if the paper came "Sizing, unsized", that is, lacking the thin gelatinous material used to fill the surface of the paper and make it smooth enough for writing with a quill or a nib (pen), steel nib. It was also used to prepare the surface when Technical drawing, drafting with Technical pen, Rapidograph pens on mylar, a common drafting medium in the late twentieth century. History In the 19th century, the pounce pots or sanders often had a shallow dish round the top so that pounce or sand could be returned to the pot and reused. The process is very effective for quickly drying ink, and although blotting paper has been available since the Tudor period, pounce or sand continued to be used throughout the nineteenth century because it was often cheap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Walters Art Museum
The Walters Art Museum is a public art museum located in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. Founded and opened in 1934, it holds collections from the mid-19th century that were amassed substantially by major American art and sculpture collectors, including William Thompson Walters and his son Henry Walters. William Walters began collecting when he moved to Paris as a nominal Confederate loyalist at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, and Henry Walters refined the collection and made arrangements for the construction what ultimately was Walters Art Museum. Admission to the museum is free. History After allowing the Baltimore public to occasionally view his father's and his growing added collections at his West Mount Vernon Place mansion during the late 1800s, Henry Walters arranged for an elaborate stone palazzo-styled structure to be built for this purpose in 1905–1909, located a block south of the Walters mansion on West Monument Street/ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally including seven articles, the Constitution delineates the frame of the Federal government of the United States, federal government. The Constitution's first three articles embody the doctrine of the separation of powers, in which the federal government is divided into three branches: the United States Congress, legislative, consisting of the bicameralism, bicameral Congress (Article One of the United States Constitution, Article I); the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive, consisting of the President of the United States, president and subordinate officers (Article Two of the United States Constitution, Article II); and the Federal judiciary of the United States, judicial, consisting of the Supreme Court of the Unit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ballpoint Pen
A ballpoint pen, also known as a biro (British English), ball pen (Hong Kong, Indian, Indonesian, Pakistani, and Philippine English), or dot pen ( Nepali English and South Asian English), is a pen that dispenses ink (usually in paste form) over a metal ball at its point, i.e., over a "ball point". The metals commonly used are steel, brass, or tungsten carbide. The design was conceived and developed as a cleaner and more reliable alternative to dip pens and fountain pens, and it is now the world's most-used writing instrument; millions are manufactured and sold daily. It has influenced art and graphic design and spawned an artwork genre. History Origins The concept of using a "ball point" within a writing instrument to apply ink to paper has existed since the late 19th century. In these inventions, the ink was placed in a thin tube whose end was blocked by a tiny ball, held so that it could not slip into the tube or fall out of the pen. The first patent for a ballpoi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fountain Pen
A fountain pen is a writing instrument that uses a metal nib (pen), nib to apply Fountain pen ink, water-based ink, or special pigment ink—suitable for fountain pens—to paper. It is distinguished from earlier dip pens by using an internal reservoir to hold ink, eliminating the need to repeatedly dip the pen in an inkwell during use. The pen draws ink from the reservoir through a feed to the nib and deposits the ink on paper via a combination of gravity and capillary action. Filling the reservoir with ink may be achieved manually, via the use of an eyedropper or syringe, or via an internal filling mechanism that creates suction (for example, through a piston mechanism) or a vacuum to transfer ink directly through the nib into the reservoir. Some pens employ removable reservoirs in the form of pre-filled ink cartridges. History Early prototypes of reservoir pens According to Qadi al-Nu'man al-Tamimi () in his ''Kitab al-Majalis wa 'l-musayarat'', the Fatimid caliph Al-Mu'izz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mother Of Pearl
Nacre ( , ), also known as mother-of-pearl, is an organicinorganic composite material produced by some molluscs as an inner shell layer. It is also the material of which pearls are composed. It is strong, resilient, and iridescent. Nacre is found in some of the most ancient lineages of bivalves, gastropods, and cephalopods. However, the inner layer in the great majority of mollusc shells is porcellaneous, not nacreous, and this usually results in a non-iridescent shine, or more rarely in non-nacreous iridescence such as ''flame structure'' as is found in conch pearls. The outer layer of cultured pearls and the inside layer of pearl oyster and freshwater pearl mussel shells are made of nacre. Other mollusc families that have a nacreous inner shell layer include marine gastropods such as the Haliotidae, the Trochidae and the Turbinidae. Physical characteristics Structure and appearance Nacre is composed of hexagonal platelets, called tablets, of aragonite (a form o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lead Glass
Lead glass, commonly called crystal, is a variety of glass in which lead replaces the calcium content of a typical potash glass. Lead glass contains typically 18–40% (by mass) lead(II) oxide (PbO), while modern lead crystal, historically also known as flint glass due to the original silica source, contains a minimum of 24% PbO. Lead glass is often desirable for a variety of uses due to its clarity. In marketing terms it is often called crystal glass. The term ''lead crystal'' is, technically, not an accurate term to describe lead glass, because glass lacks a crystalline structure and is instead an amorphous solid. The use of the term remains popular for historical and commercial reasons, but is sometimes changed to simply ''crystal'' because of lead's reputation as a toxic substance. It is retained from the Venetian word to describe the rock crystal (quartz) imitated by Murano glassmakers. This naming convention has been maintained to the present day to describe deco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
