Macintyre Western Hemisphere paperweight, Bartholomew, 1889

About this piece

This paperweight sits at the crossover of two specialist fields: porcelain manufacture and cartography. James Macintyre & Co of Burslem produced the cream-toned earthenware body, its incurved sides and incised geometric border picked out in painted red line decoration, while the printed map itself carries the credit "J.G. Bartholomew F.R.G.S.", the Edinburgh cartographer whose work shows up across a huge range of Victorian atlases and educational material.

The domed top depicts the Western Hemisphere, North and South America surrounded by ocean and Antarctica, with territorial areas hand-coloured over the printed transfer rather than left as flat monochrome. That combination of crisp transfer printing and hand-applied colour was a genuine specialism of Macintyre's output, and it's part of why the firm's pieces have stayed collectible well beyond their original run. It's the sort of thing you could quite happily lose ten minutes to, tracing coastlines on a desk that's meant to be tidy.

The underside is blind-stamped "Macintyre" and carries the British registration mark Rd. No. 141265, corresponding to 1889. Paperweights like this reflect a broader late Victorian appetite for desk objects that doubled as small lessons in geography and science, treating a practical object as an opportunity for education rather than pure decoration.

Condition notes

Excellent antique condition.