When I said the other day on the subject of
contributions "If you haven't seen
it yet, it's still in the queue!", this was (is!) the sort of thing
weighing slightly on my mind . . . we looked at Santons last Christmas or
New Year, and Brian Berke sent me these as a follow-up at the beginning of
February, to which I was suitably enthusiastic and as grateful as always.
But the Toy Fair stuff rather took over and
they went to the long list, at the beginning June, is June the seventh? No! In
July I added a couple of images to the folder - from Chris Smith's donation -
moved it to the desktop and really, really meant to post it that month!
But I was - at the time - running around
doing the whole move thing, after which it was RTM, ITLAPD, Halloween and all
the stuff I've been shooting twice as fast as I can publish it, so I pulled the
folder back to Picasa!
Now it's Christmas again and they are
perfect, but more 'seasonal' than an 'F is for Follow-up'!
Brian shot these in a store in New York
called the John Derian Company Inc.,
they may have imported them from Italy, but as they were offering Lead Animals
from France (circa 1920, no pictures) in the same cabinet, they may have
located them closer to home as vintage ware. Either way; they were stated to be
from Naples (Napoli) in Italy, so should be Presepi rather that Santon
hence the title!
Hand painted terracotta, these are
timeless, and will have been made like this for decades before the advent of
modern plastic nativity figures. They are however in the style of Santons,
being relatively modern-dressed rural subjects and I wonder at the Italy
moniker, or if there is an influence between France and Northern Italy, the
Spanish also produce similar stuff? Dress on some of these looks Tyrolean and Naples is a long way from the tyrol?
Having said they look modern'ish, the chap
in the centre here looks very 'Nativity'! The style of execution is probably
best described as naïve- or traditional-art and hand-crafted, rather than poor
or amateur, and there are some lovely touches such as the vine-leaves lining
the other guy's basket.
A quick (very quick) Google suggests they are not like French Santon, nor modern'ish Precepi, and may be as old as the metal figures they were being sold with?
I also like the basket on the boy's head, with
what looks to be mixed cheeses with tomatoes (which could be radishes or
cherries!), a fine lemon and the most exquisite pomegranate! Note how the chap
with the hat to the right is a variation of the man in the previous shot, and
several of the figures follow similar patterns.
Then Chris Smith chucked these two blow-moulds
in his box of surprise goodies! In the style of Santons, but from much
further afield; Japan or even Hong Kong, it's hard to tell from the plastic, as
it's not clear whether it's celluloid (which would point to Japan) or
polystyrene which would hint at Hong Kong!
The male has suffered from deformation upon
mould-release to both his chest (smoothed off) and his base (turned
back/receded), but as his back is fine it would seem that one half of the tool
(probably the stationary half) was getting too hot? But they were sold anyway,
bought and clearly loved/played with until they'd lost all their
buckets/baskets and half their chains!
Also, and only a thought - but I wouldn't
mind betting these are piracies of ceramic figures or fairings of some kind?
The base doesn't help with the nationality
thing much; 'foreign' tends to Germany or Japan over Hong Kong, but doesn't
exclude it, or even somewhere more exotic like India (post Independence)? The
patent's probably a made-up fiction and the logo is pushing toward Japan
actually; looking like the HK-maker Tai Hing or 'T in
a Circle' (known to fans of Moonbase), it's actually a 'T' in a 'G' - or possibly a seriffed 'C'?
Thanks to Brain and Chris - sorry it took a while chaps!