La Dame Aux Camélias - a photo on Flickriver

            The theme for "Looking Close on Friday" for the 17th of May is "look twice", where a diptych is required, featuring two views of the same subject.  The day that the theme was announced, it was a beautiful, mildly sunny autumnal day, and I spent much of it pleasurably photographing my collection of vintage haberdashery and cotton spools, sitting on the back terrace overlooking the garden.  However, as the afternoon wore on and the sun began to sink in the west, I noticed the wonderful light on my camellia hedge.  I recently acquired a new bisque half-doll, and it struck me that she might look pretty photographed amongst my white camellia Setsugekka blooms – thus  the title of “la Dame aux Camélias” taken from the Alexandre Dumas novel published in 1848.  In the golden light of afternoon, my half doll’s creamy bisque took on a golden tone, as did the white Setsugekka petals and the yellow stamens of the delicate flowers.  Here my half-doll peeks demurely from above a petal in one shot and appears to be emerging from amongst the blooms in the other.  Although perhaps a little oblique, I was very taken with these two shots because of their colours, texture and light.  Thus, I hope that you will like them too, and I hope that my diptych for this week’s theme makes you smile.

My half-doll is a German bisque 1920s half-doll, dressed in fanciful historical costume.  Most half-dolls were painted and glazed, but a smaller number, like this one, were not.  The "half-doll" is a dainty porcelain or bisque figurine, fashionable in the early Twentieth Century with an upper body, head, arms, but no legs.  These dolls were produced in the thousands at the height of their popularity by German factories such as Dressel and Kister, Heubach, Goebel and Kestner.  Later they were produced in France, America and later still, in Japan.  They commonly served as handles and toppers for fabric covers made for powder boxes on ladies’ dressing tables and small brushes, however they were also made for jewellery boxes, pincushions, tea cosies and other covers.  In this case, my German half-doll with her romantic costume probably would have been made for a lady’s boudoir and was most likely the topper for a jewellery box or powder bowl.  She stands at threeand one-quarter inches in height.  

Camellia Setsugekka is an old Japanese Sasanqua Camellia, early flowering variety bearing abundant, large, white single blooms with wavy petals.  An evergreen shrub with small dense, bright green foliage, it makes an ideal choice for screens, hedging, large containers or espaliers.

Taken on: May 16, 2024

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