Is it wrong to find humour in the misfortune of others? With his foot caught in a bear trap and a facial expression reminiscent of “The Scream”, this mid nineteenth century match striker is a lot of fun. Judge me […]
Just this past week I was sure I had identified this unknown “Woman in Uniform” as Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna. She seemed to check all the right boxes. I had the images all tagged and uploaded. Then I began searching […]
When this small figure was listed, the description should have read something like “An unrecorded figure of Tsar Paul I made by the Russian Imperial Porcelain Factory. Period of Nicholas I. 1825 to 1845. Marked under foot with blue underglaze […]
For those who celebrate Dià de los Muertos or the Day of the Dead, the gates of heaven open at midnight tonight. The spirits of innocent children are followed by loved and departed family members for two days of honouring […]
Somewhere around ten years ago this enigmatic sculpture was listed simply enough as a “vintage elephant figure”. I was convinced then and remain so to this day that this is an object of great antiquity. I call him “Seated Boy […]
Seated Boys were a staple of Chinese Export porcelain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A sought after novelty in the west. Multiple shipwrecks discovered in the late twentieth century confirm this. The Cau Mau c.1725, the Nanking c.1752, and […]
This rare pair of porcelain pugs was found one at a time, a couple of years apart. They were made in China during the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century. All I knew about the first when I bid on […]
Sometimes, I have a revelation about an object only when I go to document it. That is the case with this figure, an enamelled version of one of the pair of cats shown last week. I had assumed for the […]
This pair of cats is Dehua Ware or Blanc de Chine. Early eighteenth century. At the time, such figures were thought to ward off poverty. Probably thought to discourage rodents like the cat night lights from the same period. Apparently, […]
When you say you have a collection of rare eighteenth century Chinese porcelain figures, these are not the sort of things that would usually come to mind. Yet that is what they are. These small Christian religious figures are Dehua, […]