Tag archives: appraisals
In 1960, the MET held its famous museum show of industrial design called “Ideas for Living.” A designer’s showcase of streamlined ways to simplify life, repercussions are still being felt today in post-post modernism. TT owns a stove and range combination that was built into a Santa Barbara condominium in 1962 and has stayed in […]
“Mr. Watson, come here, I need you!” So said Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant in 1876, and those were the first words understood – and heard – through a telephone wire. Bell had spilled battery acid on his pant leg, and he needed help before the acid burned through the fabric. Thus began the […]
I have clever readers who connect material objects with present day symbolism: FR asks, “What do I really see when I see a mask on a face?” Apropos to our past three years, she was compelled to rethink her huge three-foot Venetian papier-mâché mask of the face of Michelangelo’s David. She mentions seeing her attractively […]
Mickey Mouse is trending in memes; as of January 1, 2024, he entered the public domain. Disney fought for years to block this day, but to no avail. Now the mouse can be made to say or do any number of scandalous and snarky things: social media is awash with creepy Mickeys such as the […]
HG scored this flea market book: Daisetz Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture – a classic printed in hundreds of languages. This 1959 edition was published by the Bollingen Foundation, known for publishing books of significant impact since 1940. This title has always been of value in the market since its first printing in 1938. In […]
DD sends me a seafront shot of what she thinks is a view of a church and a bathhouse (note both sections of the photo). I searched for a similar vintage photo, so that I could identify the seaside church with two spires and a Roman-style boathouse close to the shore. Come to find out, […]
Straight from Butterfly Lane, I have a question from a reader about a pair of candlesticks: PJ says he wants to sell the sticks you see in his photo, as they are not his wife’s taste, and have been inherited by him from someone to whom he had little connection. They are of significant weight […]
An artist in Montecito was gifted a unique ceramic charger plate found at a thrift store in Goleta, signed ‘M Arntz’; she writes that the blue glaze has a delicate shading of beige on a textured surface, a work of art. Indeed, it is. The work is by Michael Arntz, a local hero in the […]
Apologies: the photo is not so good, but FK, an older resident of Montecito, sent me a Kodak photo of her Temple Lion in the U.S. Post, asking me if her Chinese ceramic was in fact late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) as told by relatives, and, what is a temple lion, and why a lion? I […]
SR sends me a photo of a pink and blue gold gilded porcelain bottle with an ornate gold stopper and interesting “scoop” or funnel to the top in gilded metal. SR calls it a MOURNING BOTTLE, and says it was a gift of Sir Benjamin Rycroft (1902-1967), a pioneer in corneal surgery, and one of […]
A reader’s Great Uncle Len lived, for almost 95 years, in a large house close to the Mission in Santa Barbara. Our reader has inherited the contents of Len’s precious steamer trunk, and is asking “WHAT do I do with a trunkful of photos, clippings, photos, schoolbooks, school report cards, ledgers from the family business, […]
