JH owns a delightful little silver-plate nut dish, a curling stylized leaf on which perches a silver-plate squirrel. A stamp on the bottom states the Hatford Silver Co., Silver-plate.
She remembers her grandmother used it for nuts in the front room with a set of nut crackers that to her childish ears sounded like castanets. Correct that Hatford designed it as a nut dish, but not to go in a front room. They designed it for formal dining. Many silver makers used this form of a squirrel on a dish during the last decade of the 19th century.
Allegory in Material Objects
This represents the spirit of the era, which loved allegory and metaphor in material objects. For example the cow finial on top of a butter dish, and the squirrel perched on a nut dish. Instead of our modern aesthetic which focuses on geometric line, form over function. In the latter part of the 19th century, people coveted objects bastioned by imagery of function. Grape-shears showed grapevine designs, and lemonade pitchers displayed little lemons embossed in silver plate. When I see evocative imagery on a piece of silver, I know it is 1875-1900.
I said they didn’t design it to go in JH’s grandmother’s front room, rather a long formal dinner. The formal dinner typically consisted of such nut bowls placed ranging down a grand table. Perhaps a set of four identical located within the long and massive centerpiece arrangement which held flowers, beautiful fruit bows, little condiment silver bowls for fine chocolates and glace fruit. Diners reached out to pluck a few at any time during the meal but did not take a piece of fruit until the LAST course.
How Dinner Went
They called dinner at 8pm, and served guests, in a very formal style, the first course of hot soup. At which point they poured wine and water, and brought rolls, and a fine small plate offered on each placemat of a cold appetizer. After they whisked away this course, the butlers placed a service plate on your placemat because no diner should ever see the bare cloth of the table.
Now they offered a platter of the second course, game or fish. Again, they whisked it away, and the butlers came in laden with larger platters of the main course. The main course was the only one where they offered a mixed bag of roast beef, fowl, or game and drier vegetables (not watery types) along with potatoes, from one platter. You indicate what you wanted, and the butlers served. Again, they whisked away your plate when most of the guests finished this course Heaven forbid you ate slow.
The fourth course consisted of a salad. For this the wine menu changed entirely so as not to disturb your palette because of the acidic salad dressing. They poured you a style of wine that didn’t fight with the dressing. At this point the butlers passed a cheese platter, from which you selected, and placed a piece on your salad plate when they offered cheese biscuits.
They whisked away that course, followed by the dessert course. This dessert course necessitated the entire table cleared of anything not dessert related, down to the salt and peppers. Then they whisked away that course.
Now Comes JH’s Nut Dishes
This is the fruit course, and guests selected a piece of fruit from the beautiful fruit bowls at the center of the table. At this point a guest may have picked up a little dish like JH’s and selected a few nuts to accompany the fruit, and perhaps passed this little dish to his partner. This is why something that is complete is completed “soup to nuts.”
So, we see as lovely as JH’s grandmother’s front room might have been, the little squirrel was used for something much grander as he was once a part of a massive formal dinner service. Collectors love these little squirrel bowls, as they were quite the style for the upper middle class (in silver plate) and upper class (in sterling of course), so the value is $250.