Nostalgia - Inconnue de la Seine

Some years ago when I still did the "Finds of the week" posts, I had some called "I'm a collector" in which I shared vintage items.
Over time my collections have mostly stopped growing due to different reasons, but they are still there and still loved. I also have vintage items, some inherited, some gifts, some from fleamarkets, some more interesting than others.
So I thought it could be fun to share some of them every, now and then and tell their story.

I'll start with L'Inconnue de la Seine - The Unknown of the Seine - who is also called La Belle Italienne in the USA.
You can find the story online a thousand times, the beautiful young girl who drowned in the Seine, probably a suicide as there was no sign of violence to be found, the pathologist in the Paris Morgue who was so enchanted by her beautiful face and smile that he took a plaster mold of her face from which casts were made to be sold.
So sad, so mysterious - just the kind of tale we still like today, so it comes up from time to time.
Back then the Bohemians of Paris hung that mask in their halls, artists and writers were inspired by the "drowned Mona Lisa" as Camus called her and who is said to be the most kissed face in the world after the first CPR doll was modeled after our beautiful unknown girl.

Later there were doubts about the possible truth of the tale. Cast makers and doctors said there is a difference between life and death masks, even more so if the dead person was in the water. Was it just a smart advertising move to sell more masks?
Whatever the truth is, the girl made me feel a little uneasy when I was a child. Why yes, we had her hanging at home, and now I'll have her hanging in my home.
I don't know if I ever asked anybody about it, but I remember thinking that it was a very small face before I got old enough to understand that it wasn't a 1:1 cast.
Now a friend of mine shared the story because she found the part with the CPR doll interesting, and I couldn't help myself, I had to go pester my Mom about the mask. In fact not much pestering was needed. She had taken her down and put her away, but she didn't have a problem finding her, and I have the feeling she didn't mind much having her out of the house after "having to look at her for so long" ;-)
So this here is our Inconnue.

Not all casts are the same. This one has a smile that I actually like better than the original.

Now I got curious if I could find out which of the many manufacturers had made our Inconnue. I found this pottery mark on the back which wasn't that easy to recognize at first, but then it wasn't too hard to find out whose it was, thanks to the website Museum Europäischer Keramikkunst (it's mere coincidence that the club making that site is situated in my own hometown!).
It belongs to the Majolika Keramik Manufaktur Karlsruhe (on whose website here you can see the mark much clearer if you are interested). Unfortunately the mark doesn't give me an idea when exactly they produced these casts, but ours must be from the early 60s.

Do you want to read more?
How about this manufacturer's - Felice Calchi - blog here and here? Both posts are very interesting.
This article from the New York Times was very interesting as well.
I could add so many more, but I think you'll find these by yourself if you have some time on your hands eventually.

So - see you next time on "Nostalgia"? :-)

Tackle that stash - The face

This piece hasn't started as a stash tackler. It started as a pair of lips, and I don't even know where that idea suddenly came from because my original plan had been to make another attempt on an olive wood disk (from one of my very first pendants ever that I cruelly ripped apart ;-)), and every time there was the one problem of the weaving not staying on the disk the way I wanted it to, and finally the disk was scratched and I started hating it and threw it out after scratching it some more to make sure I wouldn't get it out of the basket again to try an umpteenth time and ... yeah, sorry about that, I may have gone overboard a little ;-)
As you can tell lips were a very unusual design idea in that situation, but there they were, and they made me wonder if I could put a nose on them .... and eyebrows .... and how to make the eyes? .... and all that while some true crime documentaries were running in the background because I was being obsessed, so I couldn't stand up and pick a DVD.

You know how some things will be forever be connected with other things? I worked on the white bead loomed choker while watching the X-Files episode with the dogs and the 1960 Village of the Damned, my very first wire crochet piggy sculpture saw life on Christmas to the sounds of a Max Raabe concert, and this face may be reminding me of a French serial killer *eyeroll* I'll get over it.

Maybe you are wondering about the stash now.
I got these beautiful beads in March 2012. I know that so precisely because I found my old review. Melissa who made them stopped lampworking shortly after that which I still find very sad, that's why I am hanging on to the beads I still have from her. These were the only lentils I had, however, and they happened to fit in size. Otherwise I would have, no, I really don't know what I would have done. Order beads, think of something else, it's useless wondering because these were it, and they gave the face an interesting look.

No idea what I am going to do with it. If I find the right background, I may put it into a frame without the glass and hang it up out in the hallway to confuse the neighbors ;-)
The eyes make me think of a mask, probably because of Egyptian death masks, so maybe some kind of sand for the background? Of course it has to be light or dark enough to keep the contrast even when the copper starts getting a patina.
Let me know what you think!

Memories of Santa - The tenth door

I'm a collector of different things, but the Memories of Santa Collection is not among them which is not surprising as it was sold in the USA. In fact I had never heard of it before. It's a collection of Santa ornaments from earthenware. The interesting part for me is that it was "inspired by antique chocolate molds, early chromolithographs, vintage advertis(e)ments, and turn-of-the-century post cards" and that "the designs and legends have been carefully researched and historically documented".

Just the other day I stumbled upon this post by Crazy Poppet Creations on Facebook: "I have my very own creepy Santa. It belonged to my Daddy and he would have it on the mantel in the living room. We both used to wonder why the kid was toting around a head....
Do you know the answer? I do. Curious to see who else knows."

That made me curious, too. It does look a little creepy.
Of course it's not a head. The solution to the mystery was on the box.

Now I was even more curious and tried to find out more about the tradition of wearing masks, but alas, I couldn't find anything. I wonder why it has stopped. Could it be because Santa masks are so often incredibly creepy? And what's up with that? Why are they so creepy?
I promise I will try to find out more. Who knows, maybe I'll have an answer to it in next year's advent calendar!
Anyway, I'd like to thank Crazed Poppet Creations again for this contribution.

Treasure

It had been like an adventure movie - the jungle, the snakes and the spiders, a competing team (even if they didn't carry poisoned arrows, but laptops and electronic devices), the heat, the excitement, and now they were here at the temple's gate.

They looked at each other. Who was to go first? There wouldn't be a trap, there wouldn't be a curse. This was the 21st century, none of them believed in curses and none of them carried a whip and wore a battered hat. They were scientists and still ... in these surroundings even hard-core scientists could suddenly feel doubtful about what to expect in this ancient temple.

Again they looked at each other and laughed in a slightly embarrassed way. Together they opened the heavy stone gate, and holding their torches up high they walked into the dark.

Suddenly one of the torches caught a sparkle, so they walked towards it and there it was - the face of the God.

When I had finished this piece, it reminded me so much of an ancient mask that I suddenly had this image in my mind. I myself would be much too chicken to fight my way through a jungle (the bugs would be my smallest problem, but the heat and the dampness and weird food), but we all probably have dreamed of a moment when we discover a treasure.

This treasure is in my Zibbet shop now where you can also see more pictures.