Category: Plants in art
Orchis Mascula
A minute for history:
Orchis Mascula, a wonderful illustration from an old botanical book.
Artist : W. Heubach.
Book title: Leitfaden Derek Botanik printed by A. Pichlers Witwe & Sohn, Wien, 1905


Lemon vase

Small lemon shaped vase with lemon glaze imitating lemon skin,
Japan, Meiji era, 1868 – 1912
Collection of Dr. Otto Fettick, Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts, Budapest
Lemons and art

When I remember Capri I remember lemon trees. Blue blue sky, azure sea and yellow, yellow lemons on the trees. I brought some lemons home from Capri. As they were gone I felt so sad not having any good photos of Capri lemon trees. I had  photos of Capri lemons, even of ceramic ones, but of no lemon trees.  Searching net for nice pictures of lemon trees I’ve found a picture as bright as those lemons from Capri. And I’ve discovered a great American artist,Charles Demuth. His art makes me happy, as those lemon trees from Capri did.
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“Zinnias and a Blue Dish with Lemons” oil on Canvas. Charles Demuth, 1924, from:http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_239022/Charles-Demuth/page-1
The boat ride from Sorrento, Charles Demuth, from: Â http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Demuth_Charles_The_Boat_Ride_from_Sorrento.jpg
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I bought this little broken porcelain plate at the flea market some time ago. It was not an act of conquering a treasure, it was more a feeling that this small piece has to be saved and protected. I still keep it. For each time I look at it I ask myself, is it so dear to me because of pretty hand painted flowers , or for the fact that someone glued it together so carefully to overcome destiny. But in fact it reminds me, each time again, that it is worth it. It is worth to plant a flower, it is worth to make a bouquet, it is worth to paint a plate, it is worth to glue broken pieces together. Because you newer know when someone would come by and say: look at these pretty flowers, they are worth it!
P.s.: to see flowers in my painting, please visit my site 🙂
Gros Noir d’Hiver is another name for winter radish. Can you imagine that among the hobbies of nobleman at the French court was breeding ? And even more weird, the plant they were interested in was a simple winter radish they named many aristocratic names? French revolution of course didn’t have inclination for such frivolities and so we can eat only simple winter radish now. Which relates us to the Egiptian workmen on pyramids, in a sense, as radishes were their food, too. Herodotus wrote about it ,leaving the question how similar to the slaves are we today up to us……
Citation: Many noblemen in the French court bred different varieties, so many types of radishes had aristocratic names. In the fallout of the French Revolution these names were dropped, causing even more confusion when trying to trace how certain modern radishes are related to the older ones. from: http://academics.hamilton.edu/foodforthought/Our_Research_files/radishes.pdf
On the pyramid it is declared in Egyptian writing how much was spent on radishes and onions and leeks for the workmen, and if I rightly remember that which the interpreter said in reading to me this inscription, a sum of one thousand six hundred talents of silver was spent; and if this is so, how much besides is likely to have been expended upon the iron with which they worked, and upon bread and clothing for the workmen, seeing that they were building the works for the time which has been mentioned and were occupied for no small time besides, as I suppose, in the cutting and bringing of the stones and in working at the excavation under the ground?
Read more: http://www.touregypt.net/herodotuskhufu.htm#ixzz2srfzyWaZ


Young Woman At A Window Pealing Radishes, by: Jacobus Johannes Lauwers , from: http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_377064/Jacobus-Johannes-Lauwers/page-1
Happy 2020
Wishing you a happy 2020!!!!

Citron
Citron, Citrus medica, fruit in glass. From the Castello Sforzesco museum collection. Photo by Tamara Jare.

