Treasure from the Arnhem show

Hello dear friends,

October fifth was the day for my anual treck to Arnhem for the DHN show. This year I went out to town on mini porcelain of Henny Staring-Egberts. I bought a pair of Delft obelisks. And a pair of sultans.

The two sultan busts are in fact a pair of ornate tulip vases. The fifth and last miniature by her is a miniature 17th century flower brick. That one is not in the picture because I could not find it. It is not lost. I packed it away in the miniatures drawer, but I probably opened all the wrong little boxes when looking for it. It will resurface!

  The book contains sonnets from Shakespeare and is made by Tine Krijnen. The pressed decorations are 'blind' which means that no gold foil is used to fill in these decorative ornaments and letters. 

I also bought a silver monteith. The Asian box is made by Marja Keuker and is made of brass and satinwood.

At artofmini I wanted to buy two resin sidetables. But I received them as a gift from the owner Janny Warnaar! I was really chuffed with this unexpected gift. The extra bonus was that there was quite a line in front of the til with people wanting to buy miniatures of her stall. I want to marble the tops and paint the rest in an off white. They are in a Louis XVI style that will fit in the intended classical decor of the diningroom.

At the SillySisters stand I bought four kits for Mc Queeny mahogany fire screens. Why? Mc Queeny has stopped with producing and selling these kits. Not the finishedarticles, mind you. Those are still produced and sold. I will not assemble all four of them as fire screens. These beautiful kits can easily turned into ocasional tables Too! I do not know if people do that with these kits, but I will.

An unusual purchase is this 'skinny' piece of deep purple snakeskin leather. I want to use it for filling in the top of the two 1780 gentleman's desks I have bought from Alison Davies a few weeks before the show in Arnhem. Those desks had been out of stock for a very long time. So I was really chuffed that she put a new batch of them on her website. I want to try and pait them to resemble mahogany with gilt brass decorations and handles. That will go great with this purple of the leather.

And last but not least. A purchase of miniatures from Vonas miniatures. They have retired from miniature making last year. I went to see them for a social visit. While there they casually mantioned still having some miniature stock. Would I be interested to see them?

Well, dear reader, of course I was! Their turnings are of such high quality  that I would not pass up on a chance to acquire some more of their work. In this picture you can see an ebony hatstand and a  chairman's or auctioneer's gavel made of yew wood.

The two tobacco jars have inner lids to press the tobacco down and keep it fresh, just like their 1:1 counterparts. The jar on the left is made out of mahogany. The multi colored one is made with strips of yew, cherry, mahogany and ebony. They made only three of them and I am now the happy owner of number 3!

And finaly these four. Two turned vases in ebony  and mahogany. The 'powder keg/bomb' is actualy a very innocent string barrel. A high end way of storing string in shops in the 18th and 19th century. And the little silver posy vase with dried flowers complete this seris of miniatures.

Huibrecht