dummy board figures . by Michael Conway . dummy boards shaped as life-size figures were decorative and amusing accessories in the Georgian house and in the garden too . cut from wood and painted , they vividly , even startlingly , resembled richly attired men and women , colourful birds and domestic animals . good-looking housemaids gave life to dreary passages ( plate 172A ) ; the entrance hall might shelter a shepherd and shepherdess , sometimes with sheep ; romping children might hide an empty fireplace ( plate 171D . ) dummy board figures appeared in England during the 1660s as fire screens : a silhouette of a man or woman might be cut from thick , heavy wood and painted so that he appeared in a naturalistic attitude before the fireplace . the artists were usually second-rate portrait painters . the earliest record of such a painted figure is engraved in the frontispiece to the Compleat Gamester ( 1674 ) , where a dummy board fashionably stands erect before the fire , feet wide apart , with a drinking glass held in his hand , screening a company of card players from the heat of the blaze . the Georgian dummy board figure was designed for ornament only and was made from much thinner wood . a projecting ledge extending from shoulder to shoulder at the back kept it 6 inches from the wall and was attached to it by means of a pair of wrought-iron hooks and staples . this position and the figure &apos;s feather edges caused a life-like shadow to be thrown against the wall and secured a three-dimensional effect . careful placement was essential , for the figure might be painted full face or three-quarter face - rarely in profile . in an alcove , such as at a stair bend , the dummy board was secured into an erect position by means of a pair of wooden supports cut in the shape of shoes projecting four or five inches to the front , and with heels projecting to the rear . holes in existing examples show them to have been screwed down from the heels . these colourful figures added interest to early Georgian homes , and in the days of George 3 stocks of those painted by sign-board artists were displayed by the innumerable Mayfair furnishing stores . regency dummy boards lacked the colourful elegance of earlier work , but Victorians reverted to Georgian styles , in greater brilliance and with some carving in relief . glossary . animals and birds : rooms might be decorated with dummy board figures of tabby cats . an early Victorian series of cats was covered with black velvet instead of paint , and large amber beads were used for eyes . friendly dogs were popular for the parlour , and fierce-looking animals for the entrance hall , apparently ready to fly at any unauthorized intruder . brightly painted parrots and macaws perched high in the room appeared very realistic to the visitor below . deer , sheep and pigs might stand in well-selected outdoor positions . artists : until the 1760s professional portrait painters decorated the majority of dummy board pictures . their work is recognized by life-like poses and vivacious expressions . many specimens appear to have been portraits . then came a statute making it illegal to suspend sign-boards over the highway , and the great trade in sign-board painting was ended . dummy board pictures were thereupon painted by shop sign decorators who for the most part worked in Harp Alley , Shoe Lane , London . the existence of identical dummy board figures cut from a master template and painted with similar figures illustrates the change to a style of work approaching mass production . boards : the wooden boards upon which images were painted were at first in oak or pitch pine . in the eighteenth century beech , pearwood and mahogany were alternatives . those intended for outdoor use were cut from 1-inch teak which neither warped nor shrank under the stress of changing weather conditions . outlines for dummy board figures were cut from single boards measuring about 2 feet wide . from the 1770s thickness was halved . for comparison it may be noted that late eighteenth-century tables ( q.v ) measuring 3 to 4 feet in height were between 1/4-inch and 3/8-inch in thickness . the planks on most seventeenth- and eighteenth-century dummy boards have shrunk a little , revealing vertical tongue-and-groove joints . canvas covered : because the built-up boards tended to open with shrinkage of the wood some dummy boards were covered with painter &apos;s canvas , the fabric glued to the feather-edged board . the back might be covered with canvas also and painted brown . Elizabeth 1 costume : dummy boards painted in elaborate Elizabethan attire were popular with early Georgians and again in the mid-nineteenth century . the early series was almost invariably painted by portraitists , possibly adapted from engravings as minor accessories were correctly depicted . the face might be that of the purchaser or a member of his family . feather edges : the wide , sharply cut bevelling surrounding the rear edge of the profile at an acute angle . this gave a clear and life-like effect to the shadow thrown upon the wall . fireboards : these date between the 1750s and the 1790s . they measure 3 to 4 feet in height and enlivened hearth interiors during summer months when the burnished steel portable grate , fender and fire-irons were oiled and laid away until autumn . the chimney was closed and the hearth recess cleaned of its soot and made colourful with massive ornaments , such as lidded urns in porcelain , huge jars displaying flowers and foliage , or terrestrial globes . dummy board representations of these might be used , particularly vases of flowers . alternatively the entire fireplace opening might be masked by a fireboard painted with an urn overflowing with flowers . as yet another alternative small figures might be used , such as matching pairs of costumed boys and girls , the boys often riding stick hobby-horses . a board of this kind might stand upon a plinth of mahogany or gilded beech , plain or elaborately carved , but usually the lower edge was set into a heavy block of oak about 5 inches thick which might be carved or japanned in red . fire screens : dummy board pictures were originally designed for this purpose : stout , heavy articles measuring up to 6 feet in height and cut from 1 1/2 inch oak or pitch pine , feather edged , set in weighty blocks enabling them to stand upright without assistance . the heat of the fire must have warped the woods , the table joints opened , and the oil paint flaked away . Highlanders : kilted Scotsmen were produced in large numbers to stand as trade signs outside the doors of tobacco and snuff shops . lady at her toilet : this series appears to be the work of a single Georgian artist . they wear early seventeenth-century dress , including the period &apos;s enveloping white apron bordered with lace , and hold hand mirror and brush to dress their waist-long hair . ( plate 171A . ) outdoor figures : life-size figures so painted and arranged that visitors unexpectedly confronted with them were startled into believing that they were living realities . red-coated soldiers stood on guard in mansion porches , on hotel stairs , in tea gardens and pleasure grounds and at tavern doorways ; sailors standing , or dancing the horn pipe , were favourites in the gardens of waterside taverns . country innkeepers favoured dummies of jugs and glasses , or dishes of onions , radishes , bread and cheese . pedlars and women hawkers were favourite outdoor figures early in the nineteenth century . painting : the artists drew his outline upon a smooth-surfaced board of seasoned wood . at first each was individually designed , but from the 1760s templates might be used . the table was then sawn to shape and the edges sharply bevelled . two or three washes of boiling linseed oil were then applied , followed by a rubbing down with distemper or powdered white lead mixed with parchment paste . the colours were painted over this , the distemper soaking up excess oil and thus increasing the brilliance of the paint . this radiance when new was enhanced on fine work by burnishing , particularly of the gold and reds . the final result was protected with varnish . unless it can be seen that this process was used , a board should be looked upon with suspicion . regency : by the nineteenth century dummy board figures had become less showy , typical examples including women hawkers , ballad singers , pedlars , organ grinders with monkeys and , later , knights in armour . ( plate 172B . ) reproductions : these were made in the mid-Victorian period and again in the 1920s and 1930s , the latter often costume portraits copied from well-known paintings and standing with the aid of hinged brackets as on an easel . these modern dummies have a so-called antique finish to simulate age . soldiers : these were depicted in the uniform worn by grenadiers of the second regiment of foot during the reign of George 1 . an eighteenth-century engraving of the interior of the old Chelsea bun House illustrates a pair of grenadiers and an equestrian dummy board , displayed on brackets above the doorway , each throwing a shadow on the wall . pairs consisting of a grenadier and a housemaid have been recorded . these soldiers are about 7 feet high with mitre-shaped hats about 18 inches high . they are always found with their feet 18 inches apart , then the attitude of attention : the heels together position dates from the time of the Prussian influence on the English army in the 1750s . a variety of red-coated soldiers of the late eighteenth century have been recorded , many of them in the stand at ease position . tables : the contemporaneous name given to the boards constructed from tongued-and-grooved units joined and prepared ready for painting . trade card : an example of the 1760s is in the Banks collection , British Museum . this was issued by John Potts , the black spread eagle , King Street , Covent Garden , London , and illustrates a dummy board figure of Elizabeth 1 , describing such figures as ornaments for halls , stair-cases and chimney boards . at lowest prices . Victorian : in addition to reproductions of Georgian types , a series was made with the surface carved in relief and painted . these were mounted on four-wheeled square pedestals 12 inches high . women with brooms : this was a stock pattern . many still remain , identical in size , shape and pose , always wearing white or baize aprons , but with varying faces and dress details . they are shown holding soft brooms , the long bristles bound to a round stock with three ornamental turned knops above . they represent ladies of the house laudably domesticated rather than housemaids . because of their dress such dummy boards have been attributed to the 1630s . a more reasonable attribution is to the second half of the eighteenth century , dress having been copied from early Stuart sources ( plate 171B . ) jelly moulds . by Juliet Sanford . for centuries jellies have figured importantly among English desserts , particularly upon festive occasions . at the feast following George Neville &apos;s installation as Archbishop of York in 1466 , the huge dessert included 3,000 parted ( particoloured ) dishes of jelly and 4,000 plain dishes of jelly . each jelly was tabled individually in an earthen jelly pot except on the high table where silver was used . immediately after the invention of flint-glass in 1676 , readers of the accomplisht cook , by Robert May , 1678 , were directed to serve jelly run into little round glasses four or five to the dish . these were plain footless bowls with folded lips and were sold at 1 s 6 d a dozen under the name of jelly mortars . Georgian jellies were served in deep , cone-shaped glasses and eaten with long small-bowled spoons . the mid-morning snack of jelly was known as long spoon and jelly . early in the Georgian period individual moulds were made in white salt-glazed stoneware . large jelly moulds were unknown to Mrs Hannah Glasse whose complete confectioner , 1753 , instructed her readers to pour jelly into what thing you please to shape it in and when cold turn it out . if it sticks dip your basin in hot water . moulds to turn out jellies large enough to serve several individual helpings appear to have been introduced by Josiah Wedgwood in his celebrated queen &apos;s ware . in the nineteenth century these were accompanied by moulds in Britannia metal , copper , Bristol stoneware , and flint enamel ware . glossary . Bristol stoneware : jelly moulds were not made in brown salt-glazed stoneware as its granulated orange peel surface made it impossible to turn out the jelly . 