after some patination clean-up.....the enormous bronze winged mythological lady with a dragon's torso and wings door knocker/candle holder......Suitable for The Adam's Family Mansion, it requires an enormous castle door for the correct scale......another 'movie prop' souvenir.....
Watching the last episode of "Becoming Frida Kahlo"....by intentional happenstance, I was wearing my 'Frida Kahlo Ring' on one hand and holding my "Frida Chilum", secured by a spider ring, in the other....as I watched her demise, abed, after years of suffering....[even during which, she created all those great 'works of Art'.......] I have always emulated her 'Style' in Dressing and Jewelry.....and, of course, 'Drawing and Painting'......during the closing credits, I wanted an unfiltered 'Bidi' Kretek cheroot, or..at least...a dark chocolate/hazelnut Pirouline magical cookie, to crumble into the 'bowl'.... In Frida's memory, I've stripped the entrance foyer mannekin to re-dress 'her' as Exotic Magdalena.
I Found the artist: according to the literature Theodorus Adrianus Steenwinkel, male, born 21 March 1912, worked for the Plateelbakkerij (Ceramics manufacturer) Zuid-Holland, the province Gouda it is in, (short PZH), from 1926-1929. and possibly later periods. However, (the literature is not always correct) I would date the charger.. between c. 1914 and c. 1918... based on similar decors and ways of marking. As often, it is difficult to date these pieces...A 'false memory', reconsidered....... For years, a large, high-gloss, painted charger hung on a wall of Les Recontres, the cabin in N, Ga. I'd not seen the charger in almost 2 decades, since I had not been there, even once in this century.....so I asked that the charger be brought back to Atlanta......I was surprised to notice that the charger, that I thought was an AMPHORA pottery art piece, from Austria, was not that, but a GOUDA piece, from Holland......So, it has sat on the floor of my living room for a couple of years, awaiting some 'research' to revel it's designer/maker......."T S" or "S T" whose mark, like many other GOUDA designers, is a 'House'.......So, far, I have no idea of it's designer/painter.....or.....where to put it.......It would function as a big platter for spaghetti, but I never make 'a big bowl of spaghetti'.....Perhaps, a big Dutch Baby Pancake with raspberries and blueberries would look appealing on it..
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...a blue kingfisher diving from a lotus, then a field of round, green majolica plates, each with an exotic tropical plant, in high relief......then, a pond of water lilies and singing ceramic tree frogs, attached to golden porcelain bamboo shoots......then, awakened, i noted the time past on a triangular red and black watch that had awakened me, having fallen from its precarious balance upon a green majolica parrot's outstretched wing.......perhaps the tiny amber and silver farming ant pins are clued in, for they were on the lapel of the t- shirt that, taken from a basement clothes rack, after years of abandonment, i donned to dream in......Everything makes the next moment..........eventually, even fragments from the deepest inner sanctum files, long forgotten and having moved to less active cortex from the winds of whim and spontaneous associations....recombine as though some ancient RNA were seeking a spontaneous generation......fruit from the well of imaginings.......maybe, this is what that 'vase' is all about.....frivolousness.....ma
WHAT'S THAT COMPROMISERY PAINT JOB ON LORD TEFLON'S FOREHEAD? OBVIOUSLY, 'NOT ENOUGH'.....
IN ANCIENT TIMES, TYRIAN PURPLE DYE WAS MORE VALUABLE THAN GOLD......WHICH, OF COURSE, PURVEYED HIGH STATUS TO THOSE WHO WORE TOGAS OF THAT COLOR... CITIZENS OF LOWER THAN 'NOBLE STATUS' COULD BE HEAVILY FINED....OR EXECUTED FOR 'TREASON'...JUST BECAUSE THEY WERE WEARING 'THE COLOR'...
TODAY, THE COLOR PURPLE IS NOT AS VALUED, SINCE PURPLE DYE CAN BE EXTRACTED FROM A COMMON DALIA OR ANY OF DOZEN OF OTHER SOURCES...... IF I COULD 'GO BACK IN TIME' TO ANCIENT ATHENS, WITH MY $12 BASKET OF GAUZY CHIFFON, I COULD TRADE THE FABRIC, THAT I GOT FROM A FABRIC STORE CLOSE-OUT SALE, IN A STRIP MALL, FOR A VILLA, A DOZEN PERSONAL SLAVES, 2 DOGS, A HUNDRED JUGS OF WINE, A COUPLE OF HARLOTS, AND A BOX OF GOLD JEWELRY......
I found, in a zip-lock plastic bag....this intricately fabricated ring....which, amazingly, I thought, bears no 'signature'......although it is a tour de force of technical goldsmithing and diamond setting; however, on inspection under a microscope, I discovered a stamp, that I thought was for Gold Karat...."KK"....I believe that the 'maker/designer' is 'KK'.....Alas, it does not fit any of my fingers! It once belonged to 'Vectra' Barnett.....aka Shirley Orkin......of Atlanta.....
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