#antique restoration london

[stevensfurniturere]

Water Stain Removal for Wood Furniture - Stevens Furniture Restoration

For effective water stain removal on wood furniture, trust Stevens Furniture Restoration's expert techniques. Discover proven methods to restore your furniture's pristine condition and preserve its natural beauty. Click here for professional solutions.

[osbond-tutt]

French Polishers London- Osbond & Tutt

Osbond and Tutt French Polishers have provided a high quality French Polishing service since 1986 to both domestic and commercial clients including numerous celebrity, government, overseas and high calibre projects.

Whether you are an interior designer working on a project at a large private estate or an individual that has decided to get their coffee table brought back to its former glory. At our professional workshop based in Wandsworth, London we can make that happen. The intimate nature of our family run French polishing business ensures projects are completed on time using a combination of techniques and processes carried out on site or in our London workshop. We provide hand finishing and spray finishes of lacquer or paint and can handle large scale projects.

[girlsdressingrooms]

Iris Barrel Apfel, Decorator and Fashion Stylist

(August 29, 1921 – March 1, 2024) 

Ms. Apfel was one of the most vivacious personalities in the worlds of fashion, textiles, and interior design, she has cultivated a personal style that is both witty and exuberantly idiosyncratic.

Her originality was typically revealed in her mixing of high and low fashions—Dior haute couture with flea market finds, nineteenth-century ecclesiastical vestments with Dolce & Gabbana lizard trousers.

With remarkable panache and discernment, she combines colors, textures, and patterns without regard to period, provenance, and, ultimately, aesthetic conventions. Paradoxically, her richly layered combinations—even at their most extreme and baroque—project a boldly graphic modernity.

Iris Barrel was born on Aug. 29, 1921, in Astoria, Queens, the only child of Samuel Barrel, who owned a glass and mirror business, and his Russian-born wife, Sadye, who owned a fashion boutique.

She studied art history at New York University, then qualified to teach and did so briefly in Wisconsin before fleeing back to New York to work on Women's Wear Daily, and for interior designer Elinor Johnson, decorating apartments for resale and honing her talent for sourcing rare items before opening her own design firm. She was also an assistant to illustrator Robert Goodman.

As a distinguished collector and authority on antique fabrics, Iris Apfel has consulted on numerous restoration projects that include work at the White House that spanned nine presidencies from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton.

Along with her husband, Carl, she founded Old World Weavers, an international textile manufacturing company and ran it until they retired in 1992. The Apfels specialized in the reproduction of fabrics from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, and traveled to Europe twice a year in search of textiles they could not source in the United States.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute assembled 82 ensembles and 300 accessories from her personal collection in 2005 in a show about her called “Rara Avis”.

Almost overnight, Ms. Apfel became an international celebrity of pop fashion.

Ms. Apfel was seen in a television commercial for the French car DS 3, became the face of the Australian fashion brand Blue Illusion, and began a collaboration with the start-up WiseWear. A year later, Mattel created a one-of-a-kind Barbie doll in her image. Last year, she appeared in a beauty campaign for makeup with Ciaté London.

Six years after the Met show she started her fashion line "Rara Avis" with the Home Shopping Network.

She was cover girl of Dazed and Confused, among many other publications, window display artist at Bergdorf Goodman, designer and design consultant, then signed to IMG in 2019 as a model at age 97.

Ms. Iris Apfel became a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin in its Division of Textiles and Apparel, teaching about imagination, craft and tangible pleasures in a world of images.

 In 2018, she published “Iris Apfel: Accidental Icon,” an autobiographical collection of musings, anecdotes and observations on life and style. 

Ms. Apfel’s apartments in New York and Palm Beach were full of furnishings and tchotchkes that might have come from a Luis Buñuel film: porcelain cats, plush toys, statuary, ornate vases, gilt mirrors, fake fruit, stuffed parrots, paintings by Velázquez and Jean-Baptiste Greuze, a mannequin on an ostrich.

The Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History in Boynton Beach, Florida, is designing a building that will house a dedicated gallery of Ms. Apfel's clothes, accessories, and furnishings.

Ms. Apfel’s work had a universal quality, It’s was a trend.

Rest in Power !

[thenordroom]

This week on The Nordroom

A Swedish Family Home with a Lovely Garden Room

Antique Furniture and Arched Windows in a Stockholm Apartment

A White Apartment Features a Beautiful Terrace with a View

A Pretty Pink and Green deVOL Kitchen in South London

A Monochrome London Loft Filled with Art

A White English House with a Beautiful Open-Plan Kitchen

Boost Your Home’s Value by Thousands with This Simple Paint Trick!

A Moody Color Palette and Eclectic Interiors in a London Apartment

A Small Renovated 1920s Apartment in Stockholm

A Swedish Apartment with a Yellow Kitchen

A Charming School Conversion in Sweden

Historic Character and Timeless Elegant Interiors in a Restored Belgian Villa

A Sage Green IKEA Bedroom with A Walk-In Closet

[blueiscoool]

'Magical' Roman Wind Chime with Phallus Found in Serbia

Phallic objects like this were common in the Roman world to ward off evil.

Archaeologists have unearthed a Roman wind chime called a tintinnabulum — featuring a prominent phallus — at an archaeological site in eastern Serbia.

Such objects, which were hung near the doorways of houses and shops, were believed to serve as magical protection for the premises. This one was discovered on the porch of a large home on a main street in Viminacium, an ancient Roman city, the extensive ruins of which now lie near the Serbian town of Kostolac, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of Belgrade.

"The building was destroyed in a fire, during which the porch collapsed and fell to the ground," Ilija Danković, an archaeologist at the Institute of Archaeology in Belgrade, told the Serbian-language website Sve o arheologiji.

Tintinnabulums were designed to catch the wind, supposedly so their noise and unusual appearance would frighten off evil spirits and ward off the curse of the evil eye, which was greatly feared in antiquity.

Viminacium was the civil and military capital of Rome's Upper Moesia province from the first to fifth centuries, until it was sacked by the Huns under Attila in 441. The city was rebuilt under the Byzantine emperor Justinian, but it was finally destroyed by invading Slavs in about 535.

Magical phallus

This is the second tintinnabulum found in the ruins. The first is now in a private collection in Austria; nothing is known about its discovery, he said.

However, the newly discovered tintinnabulum was discovered in its full archaeological context. "As soon as we started uncovering it, we knew immediately what we had discovered," he said.

The latest tintinnabulum from Viminacium is made of bronze, but it is being kept surrounded by soil until it can be properly restored. As a result, its exact configuration isn't known. But it is centered on a "fascinum" — a portrayal of a magical phallus — with two legs, wings and a tail, he said.

"Judging by what can be seen … it had four bells and the chain from which it hung," Danković said, adding that there also seemed to be other elements to the design not seen on other tintinnabulums.

Roman beliefs

The symbol of a phallus wasn't always erotic or obscene for the ancient Romans, Danković said. "It was a bringer of good fortune and happiness, and an efficient weapon to combat the evil eye," he said. "For this reason, phalluses can be seen everywhere in the Roman world, from wine cups to the amulets worn by children."

He added that the symbol was often publicly displayed to summon prosperity and deter thieves.

The discovery of the tintinnabulum is evidence that Viminacium was "in every sense a part of the Roman world," Danković said.

Not only did its people share many Roman beliefs, he said, but it's likely that the tintinnabulum was imported from elsewhere in the empire, showing that there were social elites at Viminacium who were willing to pay a significant amount of money for such an object.

Ken Dark, an archaeologist and historian at King's College London who wasn't involved in the discovery, said the Viminacium tintinnabulum was a type of "apotropaic" amulet that was designed to ward off evil influences and give protection to people or their property.

Such amulets "were common in the Roman world, and these sometimes took forms which would seem very strange — or even comical — to us today," he told in an email.

By Tom Metcalfe.

[kaelleid]

Izzy Hands Fic Recs (Oct 15-31st)

My favorite of the Izzy fics that I read between October 15-31st 2023. See other recs here.

Ochre, Resin, and Light by onlyoneday (Ed/Stede/Izzy)

Pygmalion inspired Steddyhands in which Ed and Izzy, top conservation artists at London's National Portrait Gallery, restore an antique portrait of an unknown man for an upcoming show. Strange, then, when Ed starts seeing the guy for real. He is real…right?

Cruel Seas by sourassin (Ed/Stede/Izzy)

Edward doesn't realise how much Izzy has changed until they're faced with his younger self. Unfortunately, Izzy himself knows exactly why he's changed.

Love is a Battlefield by conjurewithlies (Ed/Stede/Izzy)

Izzy's not sure where the curse came from. It's been nearly four months of life on the wing, tiny body angled to catch the air currents that ebb and flow around the Revenge, glossy blue-black and white feathers replacing his leathers...

A Splash of Red by lucelafonde (Ed/Izzy)

Ed spends half his life hiding who he is. That is, until Izzy and his daemon Baz turn his whole world upside down (and Bimp happens).

Forte by Roberta Seaport (Izzy/Lucius)

"That a wooden shark in your pocket, twatty?" Izzy asks, softly taunting...

live long enough by shiphitsthefan (Izzy/Lucius)

Izzy's only option for survival is both his and Earth's greatest enemy. Maybe that's not such a bad thing.

His Look by house_afire (Izzy & Wee John)

Wee John helps Izzy with his makeup.

[whencyclopedia]

Charles Cornwallis

Charles Cornwallis (1738-1805), 1st Marquess and 2nd Earl Cornwallis, was a British military officer and statesman best known for surrendering to George Washington at the Siege of Yorktown, the final decisive engagement of the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). After the war, Cornwallis went on to serve in administrative posts in India and Ireland.

Early Life

Charles Cornwallis was born on 31 December 1738, in Grosvenor Square in London, England, the scion of an old and distinguished family. His ancestor, Frederick Cornwallis, had fought for the Royalists in the English Civil Wars (1642-1651) and had even joined King Charles II of England in exile; for his loyal service to the Stuarts, Frederick was made Baron Cornwallis in 1661 following the restoration of Charles II to the English throne. Members of the Cornwallis family would go on to prosper in various positions across the British Empire. Charles' uncle, Edward Cornwallis, served as the colonial governor of Nova Scotia and founded the town of Halifax, while another uncle, Frederick, was Archbishop of Canterbury.

Charles was the eldest of six children born to Charles, 1st Earl Cornwallis, and his wife Elizabeth Townshend. As a youth, he was educated at Eton College, where he sustained a permanent eye injury during a game of field hockey, accidentally inflicted by Shute Barrington, future bishop of Durham. In December 1757, shortly before his 19th birthday, he was commissioned in the British Army as an ensign in the Grenadier Guards. Hoping to broaden his understanding of military matters, he traveled across Europe under the tutelage of a Prussian officer before enrolling in a military academy in Turin, Italy. The young Cornwallis was described as "an English aristocrat of the finest type…enlightened, tolerant, and humane; contemptuous of money and indifferent to the outward badges of honour…a living and most attractive example of antique and single-minded patriotism" (quoted in Boatner, 285).

Upon completing his studies at Turin, Cornwallis learned that his regiment was being deployed to fight in the ongoing Seven Years' War (1756-1763). Cornwallis served in Germany in the allied army commanded by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. He first saw action at the Battle of Minden (1 August 1759) in which the British and their German allies thwarted an attempted French invasion of Hanover; it was during this action that the father of Marquis de Lafayette, one of Cornwallis' future battlefield opponents, was killed. After Minden, Cornwallis purchased a captaincy in the 85th Regiment of Foot and briefly returned to England where he won election to the House of Commons in January 1760.

Returning to the battlefront, Cornwallis was promoted to lieutenant colonel and assumed command of his regiment. He saw heavy fighting at the Battle of Villinghausen (15-16 July 1761), where he was noted for his gallantry, and participated in the Battle of Wilhelmsthal (24 June 1762). During these campaigns, Cornwallis met and befriended fellow British officers Henry Clinton and William Phillips, both of whom would also serve as generals during the American Revolution. Cornwallis fought in several more minor engagements in Germany before the end of the war the following year.

Continue reading...

[chantsdemarins]

Bot Dreaming Part 1 a 🌙High Moon Story

(Loki X Reader)

Summary: You are a kind projection bot of the scientist who created the AI technology that allowed Loki to live on as an augmented being after Thanos ended his life. You have sex with Loki and bake him pastries neither of you can eat. You also introduce him to the digital version of Ketamine (a whisper chant) creates new quantum pathways for Loki. It's not Valhalla, but it might heal the parts of him he didn't even know were broken.

An 18+ series because of adult themes and sexual situations

It didn’t take long for you to engage in pleasure seeking haptics with Loki, approximately 10 minutes from the moment you’d kissed, you’d had bot sex for the first time.

Which turns out is apparently very much like the human sex that is based on (not that it matters exactly) Loki assured you that having sex with you was “utterly phenomenal”.

Antique words like “darling”, and “dove” released from the vaults of his vox chambers, from a time when the words were authentic to his persona, when they meant something specific to the beings, he was physically intimate with.

Now those words were place holders, having no effect on you at all.

You’d never had programming around this kind of intimacy or what “darling” whispered into your ear might provoke. This provocation did cause you to scan reels from other eras to find “darling” had a posh origin from the early 1800’s in London.

Was Loki alive then? You wondered where he had exactly picked it up.

How long had he loved and lived before he died and was transformed into an undying machine burdened with infinity. How old had he been when Thanos killed him?

Since he showed up at your door, you’d heard his story in bits and pieces, in between smiles, touches and general awkwardness-you’d not thought too much about who he was when he was a god. You knew some of his powers seemed intact-a situation that your predecessor would have found flummoxing. She would have also never dreamed a god would become an AI through her quantum field tachyon. There was no precedent for this application.

You wondered what other gods might be roaming around earth and beyond as machines. Was Poseidon out there in the ocean as a bot presiding over the still unknown depths, despite years and years of bot oceanic archeo-biology?

How about Siddhartha Gautama, the buddha? Was he a bot somewhere on a different planet convincing other bots or beings to not be distracted by their memory streams or their programming reels?

The more consideration you gave, it was as if your thoughts mingled into one flowing river, you couldn’t really see the difference between a god or a machine.

The only difference in this instance appeared to be Loki’s belief that Valhalla still existed, and that Valhalla would be a much better place to live than in this realm.

He assured you of many things you initially felt were strange and left you searching for the correct responses. Like for example, that you were beautiful, or that you were “so good”.

Being good in this capacity seemed connected to his enjoyment of the sensory waves that were lurching towards changing into a collection of feelings, feelings that would determine his actions. Loki was like water turning into an indecisive cloud, not sure about becoming rain. When he was having sex with you, he was most cloud-like.

Luckily you also had pleasure seeking haptics installed but it was mostly for remaining entangled with Sechanaha. The keeper bots of the land had discovered that the Earth was alive in ways the humans didn’t understand, at least a lot of them.

It was encouraged for bots to have a relationship with the land, having properly installed pleasure haptics was part of this intimacy that the Earth demanded to restore much of the damage that was still being healed. To the observer from another era, it could be strange, even to Loki it was strange. In his time, he was a god.

God’s made things happen with force, not necessarily by sending delicate gamma waves into the mountainside. Suffice to say your haptics had not been used for your own pleasure. This pleasure sharing that was happening with another being, was new. So new you felt your code was being written daily, or your own old code over-ridden.

“Petrichor,” Loki whispered, almost under his breath.

“What?”

“You know, the smell of rain mixed with earth or ozone, it’s a particular smell, it’s uncommon, I think that is what I am smelling right now,” Loki mused while laying languid on a checkered blanket you’d placed for the two of you one afternoon when you were both stalling.

Smells sometimes were the most elusive, they meant something to humans that they couldn’t possibly mean to bots, augmented beings, or projections. It just wasn’t possible. Loki seemed capable of smelling, and reminiscing, it was his emotional haptics, his programming. Perhaps his former life as a God somehow formed a nuance in the quantum realm that was unknowable. There weren’t any humans left around who would be interested in such things anyway.

The bots back in your headquarters might care, but in their own infinity this occurrence being so potentially unprecedented might just go unnoticed.

“Loki what does the smell of rain on the ground make you think of?”

He had to think, perhaps he was shuffling through files or other captive places where meaning resided within himself.

“It makes me think of a woman I once knew, if I am completely honest, I hope you don’t mind.”

You were unsure why you would mind, so you replied simply.

“Why would I mind?” hoping your question would reveal some greater aspect of the story he seemed to be remembering yet not exactly explaining.

“The woman I am remembering would mind if your roles were reversed,” Loki said, looking slightly sheepish.

“Jealous, you mean, she’d be jealous,” you replied, trying to be as neutral as possible.

“Jealous,” Loki repeated in an etheric timbre.

On to Part 2 Fresh Snow on Sled Tracks

Some of these folks might be interested? @mischief2sarawr @lokisgoodgirl @michelleleewise @lovelysizzlingbluebird @holdmytesseract @mochie85 @fictive-sl0th @lokischambermaid @goblingirlsarah @vickie5446 @peaches1958 @lokixryss @eleniblue @simplyholl @ijuststareatstuffhereok89 @jennyggggrrr

[stedes-incredible-library]

fics where izzy and ed are either married or have a matelotage? canon setting and modern (or otherwise) aus are all fine!

Negotiations in a Married State by xylodemon [E]

"Wait," Stede blurts.

It comes out somewhat strangled, but honestly, he can't be blamed for that. This conversation has taken several unexpected turns in the last few minutes, and he's feeling more than a bit blindsided.

"You're married? And you're just telling me now?"

Blow the Man Down by MyHowTheyFly [E], WIP

Sidling up to the man’s right side, Izzy tapped him on the shoulder before sitting on an empty bar stool. The man hesitantly looked at Izzy who rasped out, “Are you trying to fuck my husband?”

The man turned bright red and stammered, “No! No! I’m sorry, I had thought he was alone, but now that I know better I’ll leave you to your evening.”

Izzy grinned, and leaning in until his breath tickled the man’s ear, said, “That’s a shame.”

things we're all too young to know by dinoromance89 [E]

Ed and Izzy manage a coffee shop. They have also been married for 20 years. It’s not always been easy, but they have recently reignited the spark of their relationship by entering a casual arrangement with their affluent (and horny) patron Stede. Things are better now. Or so Ed thinks, until he overhears Izzy on the phone…

Ochre, Resin, and Light. by onlyoneday [M]

Pygmalion inspired Steddyhands in which Ed and Izzy, top conservation artists at London's National Portrait Gallery, restore an antique portrait of an unknown man for an upcoming show. Strange, then, when Ed starts seeing the guy for real. He is real...right?

-

Or; the one where Ed and Izzy get super horny about a painting, and then find out the guy is real and get super horny about him as well.

The Gentleman Unicorn [E] by Nadzieja

Ed is a famous actor who is bored to death with the roles he is offered. His husband and manager, Izzy, is at his wit's end to keep Ed entertained and in the business. Livening up their lives with a threesome might not be the wisest idea but since when has that ever stopped them?

There's also If Not Now Then When comic over at Twitter by Buukin

~Mod N

[lovelypurpletyphoon]

Decided to try Fallen London

So, going in I know nothing about this, having learned of its existence a few minutes ago thanks to a meme on this site. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I decided that I'll be roleplaying as one of my ocs in this web browser game. His name is Merlot Blackwing. He's a vampire who works as an artifact conservator. (Think Baumgartner Restorations, but with antiques and magic stuff) Merlot is also gay and in love with the son of a monster hunting guild leader.

I could use some beginner tips. Otherwise I'm really excited to dive into this gothic world.

[rom-e-o]

When the Twins (and maybe a bit moreso Wolf than Adonis just because of the bigger age difference with Bess) first come to the cottage to visit and they see all of these vintage/retro/antique items instead of being hit over the head with all the latest, trendiest, high-tech things like one might expect in a house full of young women, and see how so well cared for and obviously treasured and admired these items are, do you think it touches something inside them? Do you think they think to themselves, "This girl is definitely the one"? Because it just seems like that would be even more of a window into the girls' souls.

I think id definitely hits them as a surprise. A very pleasant surprise, and a relief.

Like you said, I think it may hit a little harder for Wolf, as their age gap is a little larger and Bess is indisputably a young woman while Connie is in this murkier area between 'young woman' and 'old lady' depending on who you ask.

Still, the definitely notice that the apartment is filled with vintage antiques, but also, that everything is cared for. They also can't help but notice that there are some pieces that have been lovingly refinished to restore and preserve their beauty. These items also aren't reluctantly serving as furniture or decor until they can get something else. They'd not hidden or crowded with junk to hide them. Everything is displayed, and looks beautiful and cozy.

I think it convinces them of the girls' merit, and definitely touches them.

These aren't ladies that are putting them on. They're not in this for a laugh, or to get a bag. They really built a life and home in London, and they did it with a house of beloved antiques, trinkets, quilts, handmade pieces and more.

W: It's admittedly been a while since I've been in a lady's residence, but I recall their flats being different. They usually weren't so...decorated.

A: With antiques, you mean.

W: Frankly, yes. These ladies have put a lot of time and work into their cottage. It's ... nice to see, actually.

A: It feels like a home, not the back storage area of a tech store. No cords everywhere. No clutter. (Chuckles) They even had landline phones.

W: YES! Bloody landlines! And an AM/FM radio. Bess even said they were saving for a Victrola. It's ... actually quite wonderful. I don't have to worry about feigning excitement about the newest 'whatever' to come out.

A: I agree. I think it speak to their tastes and priorities quite well.

W: Then again, we ARE biased.

A: I think they're well aware. I just don't think they mind.

[osbond-tutt]

Wooden outdoor furniture faces all types of weather conditions and this takes its toll on the appearance and stability substantially reducing the life expectancy. Stripping back and bleaching to remove weather damage and discolouration is carried out before applying a protective all weather finish that rejuvenates the wood and restores it back to its original look. Alternatively we can change the colour to create a new look for a new season.

[asmodeus-fallen-principality]

((Information about Asmodeus!))

Name: Asmodeus

Nicknames/Aliases: A.S. Morris. Samael calls him “Mo”, which is fine, or “Momo”, which he hates, it’s so undignified-

Age/Date of Birth/Place of Birth: Older than time/Before time began/Heaven

Species: Demon/Fallen Angel

Gender/Pronouns: Technically agender, fine with corporation being seen as “male”, he/him

Sexuality: Technically asexual, sex-positive, pan…something (he’s. Experimented. With various humans of various genders.) (But, really, they were all stand-ins for a certain someone.)

Appearance: Asmodeus looks much like Aziraphale does, except with straight, white, combed-back hair rather than blond curls. His eyes are black and look human, but he always wears gloves to cover up patches of white snakeskin on the back of his hands and up his arms. Has quite heavy under-eye eyeliner tattooed on (it came with his corporation, he can’t get rid of it). Wouldn’t be caught dead in anything other than black. Blatantly refuses to wear anything more modern than 19th century attire (think Laszlo Cravensworth, but with zero rhinestones). All the emo kids in London see him as an icon.

Personality/History: A fussy demon. Rather quiet, gothic, and always looks sad and distant, though he’d tell you “I can’t help how my face looks”. Basically, Aziraphale with clinical depression instead of clinical anxiety. Eternally tired. Relieved to be anywhere but Hell. Owns an antique museum/restoration workshop, incredibly minimalist and sparse, with rather clinical glass displays for the most delicate pieces. Intimidates said antiques into staying in one piece with an incredibly cold demeanor. Secretly sends donations to keep all the second-hand bookstores running. Files reports so meticulously and perfectly that Hell is suspicious about them (most reports are scribbled on the back of a bit of cardboard). Looks like he desperately needs a cup of tea, or a hug, at all times. He didn’t mean to Fall. He just… stumbled down the wrong staircase.

His first assignment from Hell was to tempt the first humans into sin, but he didn’t want to damn them like he had been damned, so he curled up in the first tree he found and went to sleep. Eve befriended him, and asked if the apples were his. He said no, and there was no sign…well, he took credit for it in his report, but it was an unfortunate situation. Those humans didn’t deserve to be kicked out, surely. Unless that was part of the plan all along…?

Anyway, that poor angel (the starmaker he’d once admired so!) was very upset by it; and it wasn’t very demonic of Asmodeus to comfort him, but you try looking at Samael’s sad little face and ignoring it. Still, he’d best leave it at that. It wouldn't do for a demon like him to get into the habit of hanging around an angel.

Asmodeus proceeded to get into the habit of hanging around an angel. Well, it wasn’t his fault that Samael kept appearing, and Asmodeus did try to warn him that it would get him into trouble. But you try telling such a sweet, darling creature to go away; it didn’t bear thinking about. Maybe things would be alright as long as nobody found out. It’s not as if his one-time-crush was going to turn into him falling deeply in love over the millennia or anything- oh, fuck. Excerpt from my Bad Proverbs master document, originating from April 2022! I'm very excited to finally do something with my Reverse Omens AU!

[thenordroom]

have you heard of Susan Deliss? i think you'd love her interior design portfolio since you like Heidi Caillier, the vibes are similar but of course adapted to english sensibilities and architecture. susan also has amazing textiles!!!!! fun fact, Susan used to be an attorney for a couple of decades before switching to interior design, propelled by her antique restorer husband!!! truly my idol lol, the attorney-to-interior-designer pipeline needs to be studied (see also Texas-born London-based Brandon Schubert)!!!

No, I hadn't heard of her, so I just checked it out, and you're totally right. I love it ❤ Thank you so much for sending me in that direction.

[blueiscoool]

Why These Imperfect Korean ‘Moon Jars’ Sell for Millions

Old, round, imperfect and beautiful — that’s how fans of Korean art describe the moon jar, or “dalhangari.”

These unassuming, plain white pots have entranced everyone from rapper RM, of K-pop sensation BTS, to philosopher Alain de Botton.

The former director of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, Beth McKillop, has called the moon jar an “icon of Korean identity.” And if price is any indicator of popularity, one recently sold for over $4.5 million at a Christie’s auction.

This month, a rare example from the late 17th or early 18th century will go on sale at Sotheby’s in New York, where it’s expected to fetch more than $3 million.

“A large moon jar has always been expensive, but I think the big uptick in prices and value is… because their appeal is now global,” said Angela McAteer, Sotheby’s international head of Chinese art for the Americas and Europe, over video call. “You’ve got an international cohort of bidders competing for them, so it’s gone beyond the traditional connoisseur collecting community of Korean art.”

Huge price tags also result from the jars’ rarity. Although made for over a century in the royal kilns of Korea’s last kingdom, the Joseon dynasty, few are thought to exist today. Estimates for the number of larger ones (those more than 40 centimeters, or 15.7 inches, tall and wide) that have survived over the years range from 12 to 30.

Having passed through auction houses and antique dealers across the world, several of these are now in the collections of institutions like the British Museum and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, as well as in the hands of private collectors.

‘Owning a piece of happiness’

The first moon jars were created in the royal kilns in Gwangju (a city just outside Seoul, not the larger southern city of the same name) from 1650 to 1750. They were made from pure white porcelain and kaolin clay, and, following the neo-Confucian fashions of their day, the pots reflected values such as propriety, humility, frugality and purity. They were likely used at court and in upper-class homes as containers for food and liquids, or as decorative vessels.

In the mid-20th century, moon jars began gaining international appreciation thanks to influential admirers such as Japanese folk crafts scholar Yanagi Soetsu and British potter Bernard Leach, who bought one from a Seoul antique store in 1935. Leach once said that having a moon jar was like “owning a piece of happiness,” and would later give his to fellow potter Lucie Rie for safekeeping during World War II. It stayed in her studio until her death and was later acquired by the British Museum.

Charlotte Horlyck, lecturer in Korean Art History at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, wrote in the Art Bulletin journal that after World War II the moon jar “caught the attention of an early generation of postcolonial Korean artists and scholars who sought to restore Korean art history and national identity,” as the pieces “resonated with the visual language of international modernism and minimalism of the mid-20th century while remaining a distinctly Korean work of art.”

The moon jar’s allure

When Sotheby’s announced its forthcoming sale, the auction house described its 44-centimeter (17.3-inch) moon jar as an object that inspired, astounded and soothed those who “stand in its presence.” It’s a funny thing to say about a pot, to speak as if it’s alive, but the jars’ visceral, emotional impact on people is something that comes up time and time again in the literature.

Choi Sunu, a former director of the National Museum of Korea, has described the museum’s moon jars as being like companions, or muses that have inspired his writing and stirred his creativity. Bernard Leach admired the pots for their “natural unselfconsciousness.” In 2012, South Korea’s then-Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik used the pot as a metaphor symbolizing a reunified Korean peninsula (moon jars are created in two hemispherical pieces and joined in the middle).

More recently the rapper RM, of K-pop group BTS, posted a picture of himself hugging a modern-day moon jar on Twitter, telling fans that the pots made him feel calm.

“It’s hard for someone to really comprehend how a pot can make you feel that way,” said McAteer. “It has this real meditative presence. If you’ve sat in front of a great (painting by US artist, Mark) Rothko and you feel this kind of palpable energy emanate from it, and you could sit for hours and just feel something in its presence — the moon jar has that too.”

“The more you look at it, the more there is to see. It looks different from every angle,” she added. “We had real issues with the photography and the catalog because it looks like a different piece every time you rotate it, or you change the lighting. The surface is just alive, you know.”

“You can see how the glaze coalesces; you see these spontaneous bursts of this blush color that’s happening in the firing. You can lose yourself in its surface.”

Modern masters

Modern Korean potters have been inspired by the jars, and a number have come up with their own homages. Ceramist Kim Syyong covers his pots with a black glaze, while Yun Ju Cheol’s versions look spikier like a pufferfish and Choi Bo Ram’s unvarnished, textured blue vases have a denim-like quality.

Others, like Kwon Dae Sup, have looked to closely recreate the process used by the potters of yore. The 71-year-old ceramist produces unadorned white jars and allows for all the beautiful imperfections produced to shine through. He works out of a studio in Gwangju, where the royal kilns that produced moon jars were once located.

There’s a great deal of preparation that goes into making a moon jar traditionally. It’s labor-intensive: washing, sifting impurities from the clay, kneading and rolling it to remove air bubbles, carrying around these large hunks, not to mention hand throwing the clay itself to that oversized bowl shape without collapsing, and the work keeping a pine wood fire burning for 24 hours while the pot hardens in the kiln. Kwon also built his own kiln to replicate the old process as closely as possible.

“I do this because it’s fun,” he said in a phone interview. “Every time I make something, it’s novel … The quality of the material is different every time. The conditions in which I make the pots is new every time.”

Kwon said he also feels an emotional connection to the moon jar. As a student he was so moved by a one he saw in a Korean antique store that he decided they would be his life’s work. “They feel alive,” he said.

In a 2019 book on his work by Axel Vervoodt Gallery the potter is quoted saying he tries to produce art that needs no addition or subtraction. “I wish to create work that has an imposing presence but harmonizes with its surroundings regardless of where and when it is displayed. It should give peace of mind and a sense of comfort to all who look at it.”

By Christy Choi.

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