Monday, April 1, 2013

The Home Beautiful: The Hare and the Chick Dessert Service, 1756




When Germany's Meissen Factory was developing a series of pastoral, hard-paste porcelain figurines for use at lavish dinner parties, master modeler Rutger Umpabahnd, conceived of a monumental figural group which would not only serve to hold sweetmeats and please the eye, but would be a feast to the touch as well.  

Umpabahnd perfected a technique of modeling a newly developed compound of soft-paste porcelain which would not only mimic the look of various fabrications, but also feel like other materials.  Let's look, for instance, at this portion of a spring-themed figural group.  This rabbit and chick figure were modeled by Umpabahnd to look and feel like cotton.  The centerpiece of the group, the pair was made to be surrounded by figures of hungry jackals, symbolic of winter.




Or...

Not.  APRIL FOOLS!  I made this duo when I was about five years old, using a milk carton, cotton balls, part of an egg carton and construction paper.  I'd date it to 1978 or so. Still in tact, they trot out every Easter.


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