A large foot warmer alongside a rare round foot warmer with their respective metal boxes to contain the coals.
Sick Woman, Jan Steen, c. 1665. Notice the foot stove on the lower left corner.
A personal stove or scaldino used in Italy was made of terra cotta or bronze, shaped in a vase form with a lid. Pictured in the Biblia Pauporum of 1410 is an oblong rectangular box with a movable grate and strap bars around the sides which contained fuel. This hand and foot warmer could also burn wood.
Sir Hugh Platt (1552-1608) was an English writer on agriculture who wrote in 1594 at Lincoln's Inn in London
Warming pinnes, or froes, are put into thin cases, and those cases wrapped in linnen baggs, to serve to heat bedds, and to cast one into a kindly sweat. The like device is used in conveying such iron pinns into hollow boxes of wood, first lined inwardly with metal, either to laye under their feete when they write, or studie, in cold weather, or in their caches to keep their feete warm.
Twelfth Night, Jan Steen, c. 1668.
The use of foot stove spread throughout the colonial land especially in areas like New Amsterdam by the Dutch customs. There seem to be no references to the use of foot stoves in inventories because they were not highly valued by the first American colonists.
An 18th century carved oak foot warmer, Dutch/Scandinavian. Of square form, all-over carved with geometric motifs and with fan spandrels, the top board pierced with an endless knot, the front with slot-in door, lacking handle. Sold at Bonham's October 1, 2014 for $796.
By the eighteenth century, the use of foot stoves with a pierced tin and wood construction was essential in America, but sometimes it could prove to be dangerous. A third of the First Church of Roxbury was destroyed by the use of foot stoves in 1744. This use of foot stoves was prohibited after the fire.
The use of the word stow was often used the colonist's inventory prior to 1800. Agnes Lobdell of Boston suffered a fire 1760 and reports one of her losses as "1 Tin Stow" with a value of two pounds and five shillings. Easter Tinkom mentions "1 Stow & frame"; Rachel La Mottee, "Stove & pan," at three pounds ten shillings; and Jonathan Mason, "1 Tin Stove & Case."
Looking inside a large size foot warmer which measures 10"l X 10"w X 7 1/8"h. Most foot warmers in antique shops are smaller than these measurements.
The design was the most interesting feature of the foot stove and often commanded the price of the piece. However, through these small openings heat radiated to the extremities of the colonial women, men and children. Often it was the women and children that would carry and use the foot stoves to the pews of the unheated church.
Pewter Foot Warmer made by Henry Will in New York (1761-1763) - Yale University Art Gallery.
The most common use of a foot warmer was in the four hour services held on Sunday in local churches. During the midday break, parishioners would head to a shed know as Sabba-day house which consisted of a shed with horse stalls at one end and a fireplace at the other end. Here they would break for lunch and place fresh embers in their foot stoves before they would head back to the second service.
An 18th century Dutch brass hexagonal wedding presentation foot warmer with decorations of hearts, flowers, and busts of man and woman which sold at Pook and Pook September 23, 2003 for $2,530.
As traveling become easier with heated cars and carriages especially in the populated villages and cities, it is certain that the foot warmer remained in use in the late nineteenth century in remote parts of the country. As use of the ceramic hot water bottle came into use in the mid-nineteenth and twentieth century and heating improved in the homes and churches with casts iron stoves of the American people, the foot warmer was relegated to simply an antique reminder of earlier times.
The foot warmer has decreased in value over the years. Kovels' Antiques and Collectibles Price Book List 1990 puts a value of punch tin hardwood frame (9 inch) foot warmer at $155 and a wood and tin foot warmer (1800-1820) at $225. The larger and round foot warmers would sell between $250-500 depending upon the design. It was common to see an average foot warmer at the York Antique Show with a price of $225-250. Now a pine and punched tin foot warmer with a heart design sold at Pook and Pook in September 2015 for as low as $74. A 19th century American wood foot warmer with circular piercings and initials E.C. with an estimate of $100-200 sold for $98 at the same sale.
We now think of foot warmers only as antique; however, they were essential inventory in the early days of colonial America. Source: Research & text by Bryan Wright
