152 
SIGN-PAINTERS AND SIGN-BOARDS. 
[Nature and Art, May 1, 1867. 
condescended to these trifles. In the Museum at Basle are 
two paintings by Holbein, said to have been intended as a 
sign for a school. A Correggio in the Sutherland collection 
(Mule and Muleteer) is understood to have been painted for 
an inn sign, and a similar story is told of the “Bull” of 
Paul Potter * in the Museum at the Hague. Watteau 
painted a ^ign for a milliner, on the Pont Notre Dame, which 
was deemed worthy of being engraved. Many more 
examples might be given : but we must turn to the signs 
themselves. 
The remains of Herculaneum and Pompeii present us 
with many of the signs in use among the Romans ; thus, we 
have a goat, the sign of a dairy, a mule turning a mill, 
apparently that of a bakehouse ; a boy receiving a castiga- 
tion with a veritable birch, evidently denotes a school. 
Some of these were painted, but more frequently they were 
terra-cotta relievos let into the pilasters of the shop front. 
Another sign of which we have frequent notice in Latin 
writers is the Bush, whence wo derive the proverb of later 
days — 
“ Good wine needs no bush.” 
It was usually of Ivy, a plant sacred to Bacchus. This custom 
was copied by our mediaeval forefathers, and as late as the 
days of Taylor, the water-poet, a bush on a pole appears to 
have been one of the commonest indications of a tavern. 
Many examples occur in the works of Wouvermanns, and 
the custom is still occasionally resorted to in the backwoods 
of America and up the country in South Africa, where a 
bundle of straw or grass on a pole advertises accommodation 
for man and horse. In the Tudor days these erections 
were known as “ ale poles,” and appear to have been often 
very elaborately ornamented, as in the “ ale stake ” in front 
of the “ Nag’s Head in Chepe,” in the prints of the entry of 
Mary de Medici. 
The barber’s pole is another mediaeval sign, for both the 
pole and its use are figured in more than one MS. The 
patient who was to undergo phlebotomy had to grasp the 
pole to make the blood flow more freely, and as the pole 
was liable to be stained with blood, it was painted red. 
When not in use it was hung outside the door with the 
linen bandages round it, hence in later times it came to be 
painted with stripes of red and white, or blue and white. 
It was stated in a debate in the House of Lords, in 1797, 
that there was a statute then in force, requiring barbers to 
show a blue and white pole, and surgeons (barber surgeons) 
a similar pole, with a brass basin and a red flag or rag. The 
basin alone is still used for a barber’s sign in Scotland, 
while in Holland the three gold balls seem a favourite device 
with the perruquier. 
The three balls, now gilt, but originally blue, were a part 
of the arms of the Medici family, from whose states came 
most of the earliest dealers in pawns. Pawnbrokers appear, 
however, occasionally to have used other devices. Balls of 
various colours were used by dealers in medicine, fortune- 
tellers, and quack doctors, possibly from their resemblance 
to the divining crystals to which such magic properties were 
attributed. At night they used lamps of the same colour 
as the balls on their signs, whence most probably the red 
lamps of our chemists’ shops. The true signs, however, 
were either suspended from an iron bar, or hoop f fixed to 
the front of a shop, or to a post or obelisk before it, or 
depended from a small triumphal arch spanning the approach. 
The ironwork in these cases was often very elaborate. 
Coats of arms, crests, and badges, were used at an early 
period as signs. One reason for this no doubt was that, in 
the Middle Ages, the houses of the nobility both in town 
and countrjq . when the family was absent, were used as 
hostelries for travellers. The family arms always hung in 
front of the house, and the most conspicuous object in the 
arms probably gave a name to the establishment among 
travellers innocent of heraldic lore, with whom a lion gules 
* Intended for a butcher’s shop. 
f Hence such signs as the “George (Saint) and Hoop,” 
the “ Mitre and Hoop,” the “ Cock and Hoop,” “ Hen and 
Hoop,” &c., all of which we find mentioned in the fifteenth 
century. 
or azure would soon become the “Red or Blue Lion.” We 
have examples of such a practice in old signs like the 
“ Talbot ” (the crest of the Talbots), the “ Bear and Ragged 
Staff” (that of the Warwick family), and in family arms, 
as the “Beaufort Arms,” the “ Courtenay Arms,” &c. 
Sometimes the signs had a party significance. Thus, 
the “Red Lion” was a favourite badge of the Lancastrian 
faction, being the arms of Constance, the daughter of Pedro 
the Cruel, King of Castile and Leon, and wife of Henry IV. 
Hence its frequent occurrence in English coat-armour, 
hence perhaps also its popularity as a sign. In some cases, 
as our authors suggest, when combined with the Castle, it 
may have had no reference to heraldry, but have been a 
copy of the brand of Castile and Leon on the wine-casks, 
and used as an indication that Spanish wine was “ to bo 
had within.” 
The “White Hart,” the “Falcon,” the “Cannon,” and 
many kinds of Lions, were all in their day royal badges ; so 
were the “ Swan,” * the “ Greyhound,” and the “Antelope.” 
So also was the “ Welsh Dragon,” which seems to have 
been a favourite sign with apothecaries, possibly from its 
being the alchemistical sign for the drug mercury. The 
“ Caduceus,” under the name of the “Brazen Serpent,” was 
a favourite sign with the booksellers of the sixteenth 
century, not only in England, but also in France and 
Germany, and thus often occurs as a colophon in old 
books. Crosses f were also in common use, probably from 
these emblems being the distinguishing badges of different 
knightly orders; thus, the Knights of St. John wore white 
crosses, those of the knights of St. Lazare were green, those 
of the Templars red, those of the Teutonic knights black. 
Religious signs were very common in the fifteenth and 
sixteenth centuries. The “ Virgin,” which may still be seen at 
Ebury Hill, near Worcester, was a favourite sign. Taillemant 
de Reau speaks of a miraculous tavern-sign of the Madonna 
in the Rue Notre Dame, in Paris, which was seen to shed tears, 
and which was removed by order of the archbishop of Paris. 
Others of these old signs appear to modern notions to trench 
on the blasphemous, though examples of this kind may still 
be met with abroad. The early booksellers, whose trade 
lay chiefly in religious books, delighted in figures of saints ; 
but at the Reformation, when the Bible became in great 
request, it appears to have become the popular symbol of 
the book trade. Adam and Eve, the Deluge, Old Pharaoh, 
Abraham’s Offering, Balaam’s Ass, and many other scrip- 
tural subjects occur as signs for various places in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, having probably been 
suggested by the old mysteries and miracle plays, which by 
the way were often reproduced in shows long after the Re- 
formation. The “ Salutation,” so common — why we knownot 
- — in seaport towns, originally represented the angel saluting 
the Virgin Mary. It was changed by the Puritans into 
the “ Soldier and Citizen.” “ Heaven ” was a place of 
entertainment near Westminster Hall, on the site of the 
present Committee-rooms of the House of Commons. Pepys 
mentions in his diary having dined there in the winter of 
1660. “ Paradise ” was another house in the same neigh- 
bourhood ; and “ Hell ” and “ Purgatory ” were two under- 
ground passages or cellar’s. 
The well-known sign of the “ Man in the Moon ” is sup- 
posed to have originated in a kind of semi-religious legend, 
and therefore requires a brief notice here. The idea is said 
to have been suggested by the incidents given in the Book 
of Numbers, xv. 32 et seq. Not content with having stoned 
the man, the legend also transported him to the moon. 
Other writers imagine that the legend refers to Cain, who was 
asserted by popular superstition to have been transferred 
to the moon. Whoever he may be supposed to represent, 
the man in the moon with his bundle of thorns, his lantern, 
and accompanying dog, has not only had a fair share of 
signboard popularity, but has been celebrated in innu- 
merable songs. 
* The Swan was used as an emblem of Luther, hence 
its occurrence in place of a vane on the steeples of Lutheran 
churches. 
f Both the cross and the chequers were Roman trade- 
signs, the latter apparently for gambling-houses. 
