I Put a Spell on You. . .

Because you're mine

Because you're mine. . . .

"I Put a Spell on You," Screamin' Jay Hawkins, 1956

This sensual sorceress, clad only in the barest of baubles and beads, does cast an enchanting spell. She is one of the series of harem ladies by Galluba and Hofmann, wearing elaborate, if exiguous, outfits of molded golden beadwork and jewels. Like some of the series, she is colored only the palest cream with her features picked out in tans and brown, giving her the look of an ivory carving. Just 4.5 inches tall, she is incised under her base "9688." The company used a 9000 series on many of its lovely odalisques. 

Clowning Around

Figural powder dishes featuring a Pierrot hoisting a lovely lass onto his back or shoulders while she displays a length of lithe leg were a popular theme in the 1920s, as demonstrated by examples that have previously appeared on this blog. The Pierrot served as the base for the shallow powder dish or bowl, while a half doll sat in the dish on a swansdown puff, which doubled as her feather tutu. This example is a bit naughtier, as Columbine, or at least a belle dressed for a carnival ball, suggestively straddles Pierrot's shoulders, a shapely leg dangling on each side of his face. 

The dish alone is about 4 inches tall, while the full assembly is around 7 inches. Underneath the base is incised with the crowned "S" of the Sitzendorf Porcelain Factory and "26021." The half doll is unmarked. The pretty miss has lost her original swansdown puff, but I created a display stand that replicates the look of the missing fluffy puff.

In the Black

This blog has featured a number of bronze bathing beauties and naughty novelties from Austria, specifically Vienna, which, beginning in the mid-19th century, became the center for foundries producing finely crafted artistic bronzes to adorn the homes of those wishing to subtly display their taste and wealth. In 1898, Carl Hagenauer opened one such foundry that would later become Werkstätte Hagenauer Wien. His son, Karl, joined the business in 1919 as a designer, influenced by the Vienna Secession, the country's version of the art nouveau movement. His stylized and streamlined designs in bronze and brass were extremely popular, shaping public taste. Just after WWII, Karl introduced a new line of miniature brass pieces that had been oxidized to deep black, then strategically polished so that selected golden highlights shown through. These sleek statuettes with their striking contracts of black and gold were a perfect fit for the mid-century modern design movement, characterized by an emphasis on simplicity and clean, uncluttered silhouettes. The oxidation technique was quickly adopted by other Austrian artists, such as Robert Rohac and Walter Bosse, and soon was copied by manufacturers worldwide. These blackened brass pieces were made in a wide variety of subjects, from whimsical animals to exotic images, such as highly stylized African figures. This lithe lady admiring herself in a mirror is just two inches high and is unmarked. 

How Articulate!

This articulated mermaid charm or pendant can clearly express her thoughts or feelings with a wave of her intricately jointed tail. Just 1.5 inches, this undulating undine carries no assay mark. She joins my small collection of bathing beauty baubles. 

 

Cool Kutani Cat

A new addition to my maneki neko page is this handsome black cat attributed to the Kutani kilns of Japan's Ishikawa Prefecture.

Fluffy Ruffles

 This pretty powderpuff lass is clad only in her ruffled collar and her fluffy marabou feather skirt. She comes in what appears to be the bottom of her original powderbox, as the ribbons around her waist perfectly match the colors of the box. 

She appears to have been captured mid-laugh. Perhaps those swansdown feathers tickle? This half-doll is unusual for the porcelain pom-pom adorning her gold cap and her tinted nipples, the latter an anatomical detail generally absent in the great majority of half dolls and bathing beauties. Her puff is pristine, suggesting that it was never used.

A close up shows the pom-pom, which appears to have been made of string dipped in porcelain; when the piece was fired, the threads would burn away, leaving only the porcelain shell. Her facial painting is also unusual, with amber eyes shaded gray underneath. 

Fluffy Ruffles was in fact the name of an eponymous young comic-strip heroine. Published in 1907 in the "New York Herald," the strip followed attempts by Fluffy Ruffles to obtain gainful employment. Ms. Ruffles was a wealthy young woman of considerable charm and beauty who had lost her inheritance. Left with little more than her wardrobe of fashionable frocks, Ms. Ruffles braves the world of the "working girl" with perseverance and pluck, entering a variety of careers open to young women at the time, such as window dresser, teacher, newspaper columnist, or waitress. Unfortunately, her employment was often impeded by men's unwanted romantic overturns, generally resulting in the loss of her job. Ms. Ruffles became a symbol of the modern independent and resilient young woman; her popularity resulted in a wide variety of merchandise, from paper dolls and candy to frocks and hats, carrying the Fluffy Ruffles name, and even engendered a Broadway musical. By 1908, Ms. Ruffles had been restored to her fortune, using her new wealth to travel the world to do good and help the unfortunate, with the same ingenuity and resolution she had shown in her job hunts. The comic ran until 1909. 

Ivory Erotica

Following up on my previous post featuring an item of ivory erotica from Japan, I thought I would post this meditative female nude. Also of ivory, she is much more contemporary and, while nicely carved, does not match the quality and skill of the earlier item. Just 2 inches tall, the ivory Schreger lines are clearly visible along her smooth curves. Although she resembles a Japanese netsuke, my suspicion is that she was actually carved in China and created for the European tourist trade like the so-called doctor's dolls. In 1988, I went on a tour sponsored by the American Bar Association of China and Hong Kong and there I saw shop windows crammed with innumerable ivory netsuke and similar carvings, often of a naughty nature. The netsuke were a unique Japanese solution to the problem that Japanese kimonos lacked pockets. Japanese men would carry personal items in punches or boxes suspended on a cord strung through the obi (sash) and the netsuke was strung on one end of the cord to keep the cord from slipping out. When China opened to tourism following President Richard Nixon's visit in 1972, Chinese entrepreneurs quickly learned that Western tourists were a ready market for netsukes, especially erotic ones, and were not too picky about authenticity or even quality, and soon Chinese craftsman began churning out "Japanese" netsukes in ivory, wood, and resin, often with bogus signatures. Some, like this creation, were nicely done, but many were hacked out on lathes and roughly detailed with modern drills. I have in fact seen variations of this same model in ivory, wood, bone, and resin, often far more crudely carved. The demand for ivory resulted in the extensive poaching of African elephants, threatening the wild population. The 1989 Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) ban on the ivory choked off, but did not completely end, the contemporary trade in commercial ivory.

 

Oiran in Ivory

I had earlier posted about the idealized image, and tragic reality, of the Japanese oiran. This superbly sculpted ivory cigarette holder features two images of such a grand courtesan. On one side she is shown in her full name regalia, with her elaborately embroidered obi tied in the front and her hair intricately adorned with ornaments.

The extraordinary quality of the carving, from the fine crosshatching in the background to the delicate details of her dress, gives the image depth and dimension. 

On the other side she is shown in dishabille, clad only in a simply open robe, although her hair is still arrayed in an elaborate style. 

The piece, just 6 inches long, is signed. Before the introduction of filtered cigarettes, a cigarette holder mellowed the inhaled smoke and helped prevent the inhalation of small flakes of tobacco. This beautiful example could have been carved for the European trade, but it may also have been created for the Japanese market. Tobacco was introduced in Japan by European traders in the late 1500s, although it was smoked using a long pipe called a kiseru. However, cigarettes were produced in Japan by the late 1800s and quickly became the popular way to consume tobacco. 

 

A New Kitty in the Neko Clowder

Added to my collection, and my maneki neko page, is this wonderful, and very unusual, antique lucky cat and kitten carved from fine marble.

Job Benefits

I currently volunteer at the charity consignment shop, Next-to-New. I also write their blog, "Treasures from Our Trove," highlighting a weekly unusual find. Today, after finishing my shift, I was walking through the sales floor, looking for something blog worthy, when I found this delightful picture of a demure bathing beauty.

She is an illustration from French luxury magazine, the "Journal des Dames et des Modes." The Journal, which ran only from 1912 through 1914, was aimed at an educated, urban, sophisticated, fashionable, and wealthy, clientele. The magazine was extremely exclusive and printed in limited quantities. Although its pages included stories, travel articles, and poetry, its focus was on fashion. Instead of being bound, the Journal was issued as a folder containing original hand-colored prints by some of the finest Art Deco artists of the period. Most of these limited edition prints were "pochoirs," created by using a series of stencils for applying each different color. However, this earlier illustration is a hand-tinted etching.

Dated 1912 and entitled "Costume de bain en taffetas changeant," the work is by André Maurice Albert Pécoud, a French artist who worked as an illustrator for many magazines of the period, and was also a renown painter and poster artist. "Taffetas changeant" refers to "shot silk," a silk fabric woven with different colors of warp and weft threads, producing an iridescent fabric. Maybe that is why our lovely bathing belle looks a bit distraught, as she is worried about how salt water might change her "taffetas changeant."

 

Backward Glance. . . .

The only thing more daring than the décolleté on this bathing beauty's skimpy swimwear. . . .

is the backward glance, revealing that, except for two skinny straps, her entire torso is bare to the waist. Of excellent china and beautifully modeled and decorated, this seaside siren is about 4 inches long and 2.5 inches high. She is incised "19144" on her right hip. The German firm of Carl Schneider used a 14000 to 19000 number series for its half dolls and bathing beauties, and her modeling is similar to this company's products.

The knitted tank suit, first introduced in 1910 by the Portland Knitting Company (later to become the renown Jantzen swimwear), was praised by swimmers and athletes because its form-fitting fabric made movement easier, but it also caused consternation among those concerned with decency and public morals because such suits were. . . form fitting. Still, the tank suit soon became the popular model for swimwear throughout the 1920s, and over that decade the straps became thinner as the legs climbed up the thighs, revealing ever more limb. As this image from a 1936 catalog demonstrates, by the mid-1930s the ever-shrinking tank suit was "business in the front, party in the back." The narrow straps bared the shoulders, making them appear broader, and this, along with belts and contrasting patterns between the top and bottom, gave the illusion of a narrower waist.