Rene Lalique Blurred the Line Between Nouveau and Deco
DF sent me a design by Rene Lalique from his later years. The fourteen-inch glass relief vase with silver and black overlay Art Deco designs gives me a perfect opportunity …
Reg Manning Bonded with the West
EC owns a wonderful, but not very politically correct, little pocket sized book inherited from her father called Reg Manning’s Cartoon Guide to California (1939). Its almost original condition becomes …
Lufkin Micrometer Set: Unique Precision Instruments
LO owns a midcentury “Inside” micrometer set (680A) by Lufkin Company of Saginaw Michigan. Although I know nothing of tools, I found the micrometer story fascinating, and admired the precision …
Unexplainable 1970s Wicker Plant Stand
PS owns a whimsical five-foot-tall wicker giraffe plant stand found buried in her late grandmother’s planting shed. When she restored it, she found that somebody painted over the natural buff …
Your Personal Psychology Around OBJECTS
I received FOUR questions from FOUR clients: How do I furnish a home on a budget in this market, when I spent ALL my funds on the house itself? I’m …
Weaving a Tale About Kilim Rugs
FG sent me a photo of her little dog perched on two ottomans covered in a tribal style wool fabric. She wants to know about them. That flat weave tapestry …
Gerstner and Sons Toolbox Shows Off Tools
FG owns a H. Gerstner and Sons toolbox from the 1950s at sixteen inches, tall, nine inches wind, twenty-five inches long, found in a Goleta garage. Its origins go back …
Piero Fornasetti and Practical Madness
HH sent me a box with a distinctive classical Renaissance PalladianPalladian print superimposed upon it, with a unique perspective, I see a near illegible signature beginning with “F” and ending …
Why a Fruit Bowl Lamp?
JP’s fruit bowl lamp at about twenty-four inches tall looks like a strange combination for us to see today. It’s a bowl of fruit sculpture and a lamp; Why? This “period …
Midcentury Modern Kitsch Chalkware Lamp
SS’s husband picked up a chalkware lamp at a garage sale. The figure shows the full body of a young gondolier with pink lipsticked lips, dressed in Venetian bloomers and …