Here is the promised post on the monster mirror. It looks approximately like this:
I write ‘approximately’ advisedly, as one leaf at the top has been broken off, and I am right now (since the photos were taken) attempting to glue it back on.
The vendor in this case was Jerry, from whom it is my first purchase.
The number of pitches devoted to antiques available in the Old Town is limited, though of course shops which can be converted for the sale of antiques do come up for rent from time to time. Nonetheless, there are a group of well-established locations which have been affected to this use for a long time, and the number of these is limited. The personnel staffing them does, however, permutate in a seemingly endless game of musical chairs. Jerry is one of the current beneficiaries of this movement, having appeared on the scene (or re-appeared, I’m not sure which) during the last several years.
A big, genial man who had a tendency to specialise in iron ware – old radiators, wrought iron tables, chairs and benches etc, he eventually emerged from the ‘yard’ to take on a slightly more upmarket unit on the road, and branched out into (heavy) furniture. I do him a slight injustice, as in fact he sells quite a range of items, but I always have the feeling when visiting his shop that he has a penchant for the massive, and I must say that the mirror I have just bought from him is a case in point. It measures 1.7metres across by 0.8 metres high, not counting the grapes etc, and it is heavy.
I think, though I’m not sure, that it would originally have been sited above a mantel piece - a so-called overmantel. In my case, following Jerry’s recommendation, I’ve supported it with a piece of batten – to be precise, a veneered spar from a long-departed piece of Edwardian furniture. This was furnished by Tom the taciturn, who has featured in these pages before, and who I knew to have a supply of bits of old wood. I felt that a modern bit straight from the timber yard would have looked terrible.
Possibly as a result of having a diseased psyche, I am capable of falling in love not only with women , but equally with pieces of furniture This was such a case. In self-defence (lest I be thought utterly frivolous), I can claim truthfully that I have wanted a beautiful mirror for many years. In fact, years ago I saw a mirror to die for, in which the actual glass peered out from between the figures of two medieval knights in cherry wood. It was very old and very expensive, and constituted yet another of those chastening moments when you realise your limitations - I could not possibly have even begun to think of being able to afford it. The pain, of course, festered quietly for years, until I walked into Jerry’s and saw the above item.
What can I say about this? Of course, it isn’t elegant – at least from any kind of minimalist perspective. In fact, what I love about it is precisely that it is so period. Grapes, for God’s sake – it shouts Victorian! from 20 feet away. I’m not sure what to say about Victorian. On the one hand, the era ended more than a hundred years ago, on the other, we still have large quantities of Victorian artefacts around in the UK, and an extensive housing stock dating from that period – though few modern households want or can afford to live on the scale of those houses, which are now usually divided and let. This quantity is due in part to the Victorian passion for the grand, solid and enduring, all of which sits alongside their love of the ornate, of course. So your typical piece of Victorian furniture will be…. just that: it will be - in existence that is - after a hundred and more years, precisely because it was built to last. This furniture is not only heavy, but dark – the Vicotians seemed to revel in dark furniture – so I would not want to fill a house with it. But in limited quanity, and set on a white wall: well I don’t know about you, but I love this look.
Sometimes I decide what to do by the tossing of a coin – let the universe decide, if you like. The same happened with this mirror. Hacina, who saw it with me, cautioned that we couldn’t afford it – which was true, but on the other hand, in what direction your money goes always has a degree of flexibility in it. Jerry had already offered to let us put £50 on it, and he would put it in storage until we could pay off the rest, but Hacina has a stern attitude to furniture purchase, which is probably a necessary counterweight to my profligacy. So we went outside and tossed for it, I invited her to call and the coin came down for NO. So off we went.
The wierd thing is that I knew, the moment I offered her to call, that it would be a negative. That was a Saturday. On the Monday I said to myself: ‘dammit, this mirror is special, we will probably never see another one like it, and it only needs £50 down, which we certainly have.’ So I went off in the direction of the Old Town to track down Jerry. Just before arriving, I suddenly thought: ‘well, maybe I should give the universe a chance here, after all’, so I said ‘heads cancels out the negative, tails makes it absolute.’ Sure enough, it came up heads, and the result is this post.
So there you are, one more episode in the never-ending saga of the Great Art Objects Pursuit. Really, no price can be attached to beautiful things. They enrich and bring joy to your life, and what is that worth?
Enjoy!
P.S. Art Objects 06 – Afghan antique cloth; 07 – African warrioress; 17 – Persian kilim; 21 -Japanese print and 46 – Georgian oak coffer can be seen reflected: for links to these, go to http://94stranger.wordpress.com/introduction-to-the-blog/art-objects-index/