Victorian Bride’s Basket

During the Victorian era, many fruit or berry bowls were made to sit in ornate stands.  The stands were often silver or silverplated, but I have also found them in brass.  The art glass bowls could be found in plain glass or with handpainted decorations.  Many of the glass bowls had ruffled edges and some even had folds in the glass.  These were popular gifts for brides during the Victorian era and are now commonly known as “Bride’s Baskets”.  If you would like to learn more about these beautiful pieces of art, you can read about them here. 

Several years ago, I fell in love with a Victorian Bride’s Basket I found at a local antique shop.  The pink and white cased ruffled bowl sat in a pretty silver frame.  I was so thrilled when my family gave it to me for Christmas that year!

Skip to last year when I heard the sound of something breaking…a shelf holding marble eggs fell from where I had it hanging on the wall.  Guess what it fell on…yep, my antique bride’s bowl was shattered into too many pieces to possibly put it back together.  I wanted to sit down and cry!

Well after cleaning up the mess of broken glass, I packed the frame away and pretty much forgot about it…Until this week when I was cleaning out a closet and there sat my silver frame.

It was badly in need of polishing and looked so lonely without a bowl in it.

I decided when I went to town yesterday that I would take the frame by one of my favorite antique stores and see if I could possibly find a bride’s bowl to use with it.  I didn’t have much hope that I would find one though.

When I walked in the store with the frame, the owner took one look at it and told me she had just what I needed!

She led me straight to the perfect bride’s bowl.  It was a cased bowl in white with shades of pink ranging from almost a cranberry color to light pink.

The inside of the bowl has gold gilding with yellow enamel flowers hand painted on it.

Some of the gold gilding is worn, but that doesn’t bother me.  It just tells me this bowl was well loved before I bought it. 

The  edges of the ruffles are clear glass.

The bowl was a perfect fit for my frame!

Don’t they look like they were meant for each other??

I’m so tickled pink that my frame isn’t lonely anymore…and you can bet I won’t be sitting it under any shelves in the future!

I’m joining in, for the first time, with Beverly over at How Sweet The Sound for Pink Saturday.  Thanks for visiting and I hope to see you again soon!

DG