Bathing Beauty of the Week

Made to perch on a pretty pincushion or fluffy powder puff, Ms. #547 admires her gold bracelet, while we admire her.  Her amber eyes with their smoky gray shadowing are typical of the finer pincushion figurines and bathing beauties made by the German company of Fasold and Stauch.  Although only 3.5 inches tall, including her base, she is beautifully modeled, with arms and legs free from her body and delicate hands with free thumbs.   Of excellent china, this beguiling bare belle is incised only "6540" on the base.

A Flea in Her Ear. . . .Or, A Little Farther South

Madame, the flea that crept between your breasts

I envied that there he should take his rest.

The little creature's fortune was so good

That angels feed not on such precious food.

John Donne (1572-1631), On a Flea on His Mistress's Bosom

For centuries humans have been fed on by fleas.  Yet these nasty blood-sucking, disease-spreading parasites engendered a genre of early eroticism, the flea hunt.  The image of a nubile young woman intensely searching her naked milk-white skin in the intimacy of her boudoir appeared in everything from fine art to bawdy ballads.

Woman Catching a Flea, Georges de La Tour, 1638.

But fleas are tiny, and sometimes the pursuit for the pest requires a posse, so it was not uncommon to also portray a helper, often husband or lover, literally shedding a little light on the hunt.

The Merry Flea Hunt, Gerrit Van Honthorst,  1628

Although certainly far later, the concerned couple in In #546 continue this historic erotic theme.  Of excellent china, this 4.5 inch tall figurine is finely painted and beautifully detailed.  It is marked only with a faint and partial blue crown underneath.  The concentration on the helpful husband's face as he holds up the candle and bends closer to better scan his wife bare breasts is truly touching!  Schafer and Vater also produced a flipper featuring a lone female searching for a frisky flea.

Visions of Salome

A friend forwarded me an online article announcing that interpretative dancer Maud Allan's original Salome costume, currently held by the Dance Collection Danse (DCD) in Toronto, Canada, will receive treatment from the Canadian Conservation Institute.   

 

 

Once conserved, the costume will join other Maud Allan artifacts in DCD's extensive Allan archives, which, according to the article, include a bisque nodder. . . .

 

 

and Salome cigarettes.

 

 

 

In fact, Ms. Allan, during her brief stardom as the "Salome dancer," inspired all sorts of diverse memorabilia.  The name "Salome" may invoke many visions, but a waltz is probably not one of the first to come to mind. . . .

 

Although born in Canada in 1873, Maud Allan moved with her family to San Francisco, California, while a child.  She became an accomplished pianist and in 1895 traveled to Berlin to continue her music studies, but in 1902 abandoned the piano to become a dancer of "musically impressionistic mood settings."  Allan, who designed her own costumes and created her own choreography, first debuted in the title role in “The Vision of Salome” in 1906, but it was in 1908 when she appeared on the London stage that her Salome achieved stardom. Her two-week engagement stretched into 18 months and she became one of the most famous and wealthy female performers of her time.  After her triumph in England, Allan would tour Europe and the United States, but her fame quickly faded. The fad for interpretative dance was passing as troupes such as the Ballet Russes combined the freedom of interpretative dance with the discipline of ballet, creating a new, polished, and more challenging form of modern dance. In 1918, Allan returned to England to star in Oscar Wilde's "Salome," and became enmeshed in an unsuccessful libel action that ultimately destroyed her reputation and career (for more information regarding the "Black Book" trial, I recommend Philip Hoare's book, Oscar Wilde's Last Stand).

 

In my book, Bawdy Bisques and Naughty Novelties, I have a chapter devoted to Ms. Allan and the bisque and china Salomes she inspired. 

 

 

Bathing Beauty of the Week

Ms. #545 shows that good things come ON small packages.  This sultry sultana is by Schafer and Vater, and the same harem lady was also produced sans box.  Of excellent china with sharp modeling, this beauty on a box is 4 inches tall and carries the Schafer sunburst mark stamped in black.  The undulating odalisque is of pink precolored china, as can be seen where the cold-painted gilt on her skirt has worn off, while the box was cast in white slip.

Bathing Beauty of the Week

Smiling sweetly from her shower, Ms. #542 must be washing off sand on the seaside, because she is a bathing suit with molded horizontal ribbing.  An unusual piece, the bathing belle is molded in pure white bisque, while her shower stall (which is open in the back to form a vase) is of green precolored bisque.  The modeling is sharp and detailed.  Just 3.75 inches tall, this bathing belle vase is incised "7742" underneath. 

Bathing Beauty of the Week

Peeking out shyly from her curtained wicker beach chair, this little bathing belle was a recent find at a local estate sale.  Across the top of the chair is a cursive  caption, "Houston, Tex."  She is part of a large and varied family of souvenir bathing beauties, charming little china trinkets made in Germany, and bearing the name of some city, often not one generally associated with sunny beaches or seaside frolics.  She is just three inches tall and is incised on the back "5483 Germany." 

Some more of the souvenir sorority.  These little ladies are generally well done for this type of novelty memento and they can be found in a colorful and wide variety.  Although they are authentic antique German bathing beauties, these souvenir bathers are surprising affordable.   A delightful and diverse collection could be formed just from these sweet souvenirs.

WARNING:  Mundial Company of Belgium is issuing copies of some of these little souvenir swimmers.  Look at HR228 and HR229 and the HR886-1B through HR933-3 under "Baigneuses."  HR228 and HR229 have crests for Barry Island and Yarmouth, rather than cursive captions.  The other series is a fantasy combination of angular ashtrays and various bathing belles, carrying printed captions for resorts in France and Italy.  As is typical for this company, the items do not carry any marks indicating that they are new items manufactured in Belgium.

Bathing Beauty of the Week

 

As Ms. #541 demonstrates, a man's, and a bathing beauty's, home is his or her castle.  I suspect she was once an aquarium ornament, with the openings in the castle to accommodate a curious fish, or a perhaps a bubbler.  Stamped underneath "Foreign 42" and of good china, she is 6.5 inches high.