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Robert Atkinson Fox (1860-1935)
Born Robert Atkinson Fox on December 11, 1860 in Toronto, Canada, Fox studied in Canada and Europe prior to arriving in America. He eventually went on to become one of the early 20th century’s most popular, most diverse, and most reproduced artists of his time with his work appearing as art prints, calendars, advertising pieces, ink blotters, candy and handkerchief boxes, jewelry boxes, magazine covers, children’s books, newspaper inserts, postcards, [...] Click here to continue reading.
D.F. (David Frances) Barry, 1854 to 1934
Although one of the most prolific and successful photographers of the 19th century, little is known of D.F. Barry’s life, at least the early years. We do know that he was born in upstate New York, near Rochester, on March 6, 1954, and when he was seven, his family moved west to Wisconsin. Around the age of sixteen, he was hired for a short time to assist [...] Click here to continue reading.
Baleen, Plastic of the 18th Century
Baleen comes from a suborder of whales, Mysticeti, which includes, among others, humpback whales, gray whales, right whales and blue whales. What sets these whales apart is baleen. These whales do not have teeth, but have upper jaws filled with two rows of baleen plates fringed with fine baleen hair. These plates are so closely aligned that they act like a comb or a sieve; whales pull water [...] Click here to continue reading.
Belsnickles
Belsnickle (often spelled in a variety of ways in North America: Belschnickel, Belsnickel, Belznickel, Belznickle, etc., while in German, the spelling is Pelznikel) is the Santa-like figure of the thickly-forested Rhineland region in western Germany known as the Palatinate.
Unlike the modern jovial Santa Claus, Belsnickle is a fearsome figure, more like Krampus in Austria legend, often depicted carrying presents or a Christmas tree in one hand while carrying a bundle of switches [...] Click here to continue reading.
Cartonnage
Cartonnage is the term for layers of fibers, most often linen and papyrus, mixed with a plaster that could be shaped or molded while wet, almost like a papier-mache process that uses whole sections of fibers rather than the pulped or shredded paper used with papier-mache. In ancient Egypt, this technique was used in the funerary process to create masks, paneled sections or even complete cases to cover the body, which would have [...] Click here to continue reading.
Alvar Aalto (Finnish, 1898-1976)
Arguably Finland’s most famous architect, Alvar Aalto was undoubtedly a major influence on the design as well as the technology that led to Mid-Century classics.
Alvar Aalto Brief Biography Aalto (1898-1976) studied architecture at the Helsinki Polytechnic from 1916-1921, opening his first architectural office in 1923. By 1929, he was designing interiors and their accessories, including furniture, textiles, glass, and lighting. His fifty year career spanned all the stages of [...] Click here to continue reading.
Mathew Brady (1823 to 1896)
Mathew Brady, the child of Irish immigrants, was born in upstate New York in Warren County, but details of his early life are few. Even the year of his birth is an estimate that Brady later offered. Around the age of sixteen, he moved to New York City, making his living as a department store clerk and filling out his income with a small business manufacturing jewelry cases. Photography [...] Click here to continue reading.
Hires Root Beer
While traveling in 1875, Charles E. Hires, a Philadelphia pharmacist, first tasted root beer. Root beer, traditionally made with sassafras, was a popular “small beer” or low-alcoholic drink in the colonial era, and was becoming popular in an alcohol-free format. While root beer has a long history, it has a wide range of recipes that call for everything from birch bark to vanilla, molasses to juniper berries, so Hires set out [...] Click here to continue reading.
Ormolu
Ormolu, an 18th-century English term, is from the French phrase or moulu, with “or” indicating gold and “moulu” being a form of an old French verb moudre, which means “to grind up.” (This French term for this technique is bronze dore.) This idea of “ground-up gold”refers to the production process of ormolu, where high-quality gold is finely powdered and added to a mercury mixture and applied to a bronze object. Modern usage often [...] Click here to continue reading.
Real Photo Postcards A real photo postcard of Annie Oakley demonstrating her shooting prowess, p4A item D9875435
Real Photo postcards are photographs that are reproduced by actually developing them onto photographic paper the size and weight of postcards, with a postcard back. There are many postcards that reproduce photos by various printing methods that are NOT “real photos”…the same methods used when reproducing photos in magazines and newspapers.
The best way to tell the [...] Click here to continue reading.
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