Clothes brush, walnut with inlay of brass wire and mother-of-pearl, probably Spa, Belgium, 1680-1740

A clothes brush, the back made of wood inlaid with brass and mother-of-pearl. Little wood is visible so it is not possible to identify the type of wood. Brass wire forms the flower stems, with additional brass pin-heads and and leaves. Chrysanthemums and other flower-heads of mother-of-pearl have engraved details and traces of green pigment. An oval mother-of-pearl plaque in the centre is engraved with a river scene, with a boat, tree, castle and church. A border of repeating pattern in brass and mother of pearl inlay runs around the edge.

The bristles have been replaced.

The brush was probably made in the town of Spa, Belgium, as souvenir ware. Spa, famous from the 14th century for its healing springs, attracted many aristocratic visitors from the early 17th century onwards, its name becoming synonymous for watering place. Spa became noted for the production of decorative souvenir items such as bellows, hearth brushes, clothes brushes and boxes, decorated with inlay, known as 'les jolités de Spa'. The physician Edmond Nessel wrote in a pamphlet in 1699 'It is a pleasure to see thousands of niceties [milles jolités] made in lacquer, done in the Indian style [à la façon des Indes]. He mentioned work done in mother-of-pearl, ivory, tortoiseshell, English pewter, copper, and silver and referred to the Boulle technique and mother-of-pearl inlay combined with lacquer decoration. (Hans Huth, Lacquer of the West, 1971).

Huth suggests that the wood used for furniture was plane, alder or linden, which, after shaping, was soaked in water from the Pouhon spring at Spa, reputed to be rich in tannin, which gave the wood a brown colour and was said to prevent infestation with woodworm.

In the 17th century most small items were inlaid with engraved mother-of-pearl, and silver, brass or tin, while in the 18th century, Spa became known for japanned wares imitating lacquer. The combination of metal inlay combined with engraved mother of pearl is similar to the late 17th century technique of boulle marquetry using brass and tortoiseshell. The Musée de la Ville d'eaux at Spa has some comparative examples; a box inlaid with flower decoration around a plaque engraved with a church in a landscape, is similar to the decoration on the brush.

The best-known maker of such work at Spa was Lambert Xhrouet, who was mentioned in Nessel's Traité des Eaux de Spa, in 1699, as a fine engraver of mother-of-pearl. He was still working in 1734 when his skill was mentioned in the anonymous publication, Amusements des Eaux de Spa, but by December 1751, he seems to have retired and another member of the family was praised for different forms of decoration of souvenir wares (see Brian Austen, Tunbridge Ware and Related European Decorative Woodwares. London, 1989, pp. 195-7). Whether particular pieces came from his workshop or others in the town is impossible to say without supporting documentation.

The Museum bought the brush in 1926 for £5, from Mr H.J. Grimwade. V&A curator, H. Clifford-Smith, commented that 'This is a rare example of clothes brush of Flemish [sic] workmanship of the late 17th century. The back is beautifully inlaid with engraved mother-of-pearl and silver [sic] wire. It is a type unrepresented in the museum, & would make a useful addition'.

(Spa depended on the Principality of Liège in the late 17th century and was not included in the Austrian Netherlands. It is located in the Walloon Region of Belgium rather than Flanders so cannot be described as 'Flemish'.)

Pairs of bellows with comparable decoration in the V&A collection are 226-1890 (with an image of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane), 1400-1904 (with figure of Love and the Four Elements), W.11-1930 (with figure of Plenty), and W.142-1921 (Berainesque decoration.)

Clothes brushes were used for brushing dried mud and dirt from woollen outer garments. They were essential before the advent of modern cleaning techniques for non-washable fabrics.

Clothes brushes were kept in the bedroom or dressing room, perhaps on a dressing table, and were often highly decorative. This example is inlaid with brass wire and mother of pearl, and has paint traces which suggest that it was originally brightly coloured. The result appears similar to marquetry in brass, tortoiseshell and mother-of-pearl that can been seen on cabinets and tables made in Europe between 1680 and 1700. The brush was probably bought in the town of Spa, in the Low Countries (now Belgium), which was a watering place that attracted many visitors. A trade developed in small decorative boxes and other articles to sell to those visiting the spa.

W.42-1926