Great Animalier Pierre Jules Mene
B and J sent me a beautiful bronze sculpture of two horses, one smaller, one larger, facing each other, with the head on the shoulder of the other. B and …
Vintage Cape Worth $120?
CS sent me a vintage cape with rabbit trimmed fur on cashmere. She wonders if with the tiny moth holes mean that it’s NOT worth the price tag of $120. …
Disk Music Box From 1900
Imagine a breadbox-sized box with a round metal disk inside, a music box with a coin slot for a nickel. In 1900 one found this box in taverns, pool halls, …
I LOVE Art Deco Clocks
Art Deco clocks are special to me. My mom recently passed “out of human time” and into the next realm at the age of 96. She collected clocks, especially those …
Lady’s Stirrups Silver or Not?
PS asked about a pair of silver stirrups, necessary for riding a horse. Imagine a time before cars in our world, and we rode horses—or they pulled us. For thousands …
William “Bill” Shinn: Master of Ceramic Extrusion Techniques
MC inherited a pottery floor vase, a quirky work from the mid-1970s by genius Santa Maria potter, William “Bill” Shinn (1932-2011). Did Shinn get inspiration for the design from a …
Common American Washboard
Why did people use washbats, a washboard, washbox, washing dollies, peggylegs, possers, posssticks, dollypegs, peggy, maiden, plunger, ponches, and punchers? They used these to wash clothes with or without a …
BIG Changes in the Art World
2019: what a year! The art and design world CHANGED that year, and we thought it had changed forever. More of us want to forget the year 2019 because important …
A Different Eagle Full of Symbolism
KC sent me a “relief” three-dimensional image of an eagle. This work created out of plaster, a plaque, boxed in the image on three sides measures seventeen by twenty-eight inches. …
The Seven Gods of Fortune
JE owns a wonderful 1900s vintage Japanese necklace composed of faces of benevolent gods. The links are porcelain on sterling. The faces, and the gods they belong to, are important …