Early European Decorated Tools

When Jonathan Green-Plumb enrolled at art school to study sculpture he visited an antique /secondhand tool shop to purchase some hand tools. That was almost twenty years ago and he has been collecting them ever since.

"I began picking them up at local antiques fairs, fleamarkets and visiting antiques dealers," Jonathan told us. "I started collecting, commonly found, 19th century carpenters and joiners tools. Eventually I discovered specialist auctioneers and dealers, and it was then that I began to focus my attention on the types of tools that I now have."

Most of the tools in his collection are antique woodworking tools. He has a particular interest in those that were decoratively made or were decorated. Some are English but most are from other European countries - from France, Germany, Austria, Italy and Scandinavia. Many of them are dated. The collection includes planes, axes, braces, compasses, hammers, chisels, augers and saws.

"There are other forms of objects that I would like to collect," says Jonathn. "For example, early oak furniture and folk art, but I chose tools because I have used hand tools for many years and collecting the older ones is an extension of this. I spent six years at art school, eventually studying sculpture and this is probably the reason why I now prefer the more creatively made tools, rather than the more frequently found mass produced examples."

He describes his personal collection as 'modestly sized' - about a hundred items, and has a small room at home where he keeps many of them on display. Most of the objects are relatively small but he has managed to squeeze in an early 19th century workbench as well.

A book in which he shares his knowledge of these beautiful old objects is published by Stobart Davies next month and is a survey of the subject from the 16th to the 19th century - Early European Decorated Tools - from the woodworking and allied trade.

The tools illustrated and analysed in the book were either made decoratively or received surface decoration. Although all the tools featured were made to be primarily functional, the focus of the book is on the aesthetic qualities that transform such tools into examples of genuine folk art. Planes, braces, axes, compasses, saws and chisels are all featured, including many that have not been previously recorded or published. The tools presented via photographs, drawings and paintings have been sourced from various national museums and private collections across Europe.

Does he have any favourites in his own personal collection?

"I have a few items now that I would call favourites, " he says. "They include a Tyrolean jointer plane dated 1682 and a decoratively formed router, also Austrian. The tools that I hope to find one day, to fill the gaps, would be a Dutch 'snik', a rare form of a chisel/axe, and an example of a Germanic 'vergatthobel' which are early, decoratively formed mitre planes, dating back to the 17th century."

Jonathan lives with his wife and two young children in a small rural village near the Norfolk coast where he teaches design and technology.

Early European Decorated Tools by Jonathan Green Plumb is published in April 2012 by Stobart Davies.