HD Beach Stock: No. 21

General Comments
Yet another fruit still-life pairing light and dark grapes on a platter with strawberries and an olive colored vase. The grapes appear to be “table grapes”. Commercially cultivated grapes can usually be classified as either table or wine grapes, based on their intended method of consumption: eaten raw (table grapes) or used to make wine (wine grapes). While almost all of them belong to the same species, Vitis vinifera, table and wine grapes have significant differences, brought about through selective breeding. Table grape cultivars tend to have large, seedless fruit with relatively thin skin. Wine grapes are smaller, usually seeded, and have relatively thick skins,a desirable characteristic in winemaking, since much of the aroma in wine comes from the skin. There are far too many grape varieties for us to speculate which might be represented here.

In looking into the history of the strawberry, we were surprised to learn that it is a member of the Rosaceae (Rose) family and the modern garden strawberry goes by the scientific name of Fragaria x ananassa. The letter "x" in its name indicates that strawberry is of hybrid origin and, in the case of strawberry, of two different species. There are species of strawberry native to temperature regions all around the world. However, it was the union of two species native to the Americas that gave us our garden strawberry. Fragaria virginiana is a species of strawberry native to North America. It is characterized by its highly aromatic berries borne in great abundance but rather small in size. Based on a comparison of the size of the strawberries depicted to the grapes, we believe Fragaria virginiana (wild strawberries) is what is represented in this design.

Because of extensive and wide spread clay deposits, Ohio had a large number of potteries operating from the mid-1800s through the mid-1900s. Some of these became quite famous (and collectible) such as Rockwood and Roseville, but many were small operations and relatively obscure. We have no expertise in pottery and it is far to large a field, but we speculate the vase in this design may have been inspired by a design and style available at the time.

Size, Shape and Message Placement
We’ve only encountered this design as an oval. This design is accompanied by yet another elaborate rim with grape vines and grape clusters (interestingly only the dark grape variety). Similar to other early Beach stock rims it didn’t lend itself well to advertising text and the one example we’ve seen with advertising text carried it on the face of the tray (on the white tablecloth). We would not be surprised if other examples with advertising were printed on the back.

Hager & Price
Not included in Hager. We’ve only seen this twice; once as a stock sample and once for NAFRUCO (the National Fruit Company). The stock sample was in very good condition and the NAFRUCO example was in average condition; both sold in the lower double figures.