Axe handle presented to Bernard Shaw by Hartwell Handles of Memphis, Tennessee
Category
Wooden objects
Date
circa 1928
Materials
Hickory
Measurements
33.75 ins (l)
Order this imageCollection
Shaw's Corner, Hertfordshire
NT 1274731
Summary
A wooden axe handle belonging to Bernard Shaw, presented to Shaw in 1928 by Hartwell Brothers, Manufacturers of Hartwell Handles of Memphis, Tennessee. With gilt inscription and stamp.
Full description
An axe handle belonging to Bernard Shaw, presented to Shaw in 1928 by Hartwell Brothers, Manufacturers of Hartwell Handles of Memphis, Tennessee. Shaw wrote to the company to thank them on 14 January 1928: “I went out into the sun and did a morning’s honest work – in spite of its being Sunday – with your axe, which I handled for the first time. It was a great success: your handles are not only works of art which I exhibit as such to my friends, but what handles must be in the first place: that is, perfectly handy…Five hundred years hence, connoisseurs will perhaps collect your axe handles as they now collect Stradivarius violins…” (Shaw, quoted in Vivian Elliot, ed., Dear Mr Shaw, 1987, pp.201-02). Press photographs survive of Shaw chopping wood with his axe in the garden at Shaw’s Corner. (NT 1715218.52/53).(Alice McEwan, 2020)
Provenance
Gift of Hartwell Brothers, presented to Bernard Shaw in 1928. The Shaw Collection. The house and contents were bequeathed to the National Trust by George Bernard Shaw in 1950, together with Shaw's photographic archive.
Marks and inscriptions
G.B. SHAW