Tag archives: elizabeths appraisals
The audience waiting on the steps of the Lobero Theatre on the Sunday night of December 9, 1957, were hip jazz lovers, some from the College Jazz Club, sponsors of the concert, all eager for the night’s concert. The legendary master of the vibes and the bongos, Cal Tjader, would be performing “hot numbers” (as […]
TG sends me a lovely etching of Scarborough Harbor in England circa 1920 at 13”x5” and asks if I know the artist. I do; the artist is a maritime painter of Britain’s ships, ports, and rivers in the late 19th early 20th century, William Lionel Wyllie (1851-1931), who was known for his oils, etchings, and watercolors. […]
SB has a red and white American quilt, created in the late 19th century, which belonged to her great-grandmother. The motif features the star pattern known as the shooting star, the lucky star, or the falling stars. SB doesn’t say if her great-grandmother made the quilt, but having been born 150 years ago – in […]
SB sends me photos of a 19th c. ceramic figure; a relief-painted scullery maid holding a gold-gilded metal cookpot, and seated on a gold-gilded metal chair. Such an interesting combination of materials here: a pottery figure, glazed and painted, seated on a gilded metal chair. To produce such a piece in the 19th c. took […]
RH sends me a tin children’s ride-on rocking horse that has been living in his garage for years; he THINKS it belonged to his mom but he is not sure. I believe this horse was his mother’s mom’s or her dad’s, as I think this toy dates from the late 19th early 20th c. These […]
JJ has a wonderful goose-neck floor lamp, found at the Earl Warren flea market. The base is a naturalistic bronze – a round figure of a lily pad featuring a little crawfish with tiny minnows. The base is stamped R B and Co., with what appears to be two sets of numbers which likely indicate […]
RH has a Chinese style coffee table with a startling scene of ancient Chinese Court life, composed of applied carved semi-precious stone figures. Two of the six figures are battling: there’s a man wielding a bamboo stick and another kneeling, the other figures look on from an elegant pagoda. RH has always wondered about this […]
Years ago, RR inherited a tall pottery umbrella stand which was shattered in a recent wildfire; she had discovered two shards that, when put together like pieces of a puzzle, read RN 288102 and RN 284106. A trace of a word is above these marks, “Melbou-” possibly for Melbourne, more than likely the pattern name. […]
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 […]
