The Good Shepherd

The 18-foot-tall Good Shepherd window, located above the altar of Trinity Lutheran Church in Keene, New Hampshire. Commissioned in 1882 by St. Paul’s Lutheran Church of Davenport, Iowa, the window was installed there in 1902; the church eventually became the home of the Third Mission Baptist Church, and when they moved to a new building in 1998, they had the window sold at auction. Trinity Lutheran, being optimistic, bought the window but had no building for it until March of 2013. Now it has a new home.

Mail Art, Circa 1910

A postcard with an image that incorporates postage stamps, circa 1910. And that might even be a cloud of incense. What a lovely piece of vintage mail art.

Bee Hat

Image by San Francisco photographer Michal Horevaj

Reading

As a tonic to all the mayhem, one of my favorite Jessie Willcox Smith images, “Fairy Tales,” from “A Mother’s Days” in Scribner’s, December 1902

Some Explaining to Do

While I’m on the subject of mayhem, an illustration by Mead Schaeffer from an unidentified magazine story.

Snake Tattoo

A Dean Cornwell illustration from an unidentified magazine story; it’s difficult to see at this size, but the dying man on the left has a snake tattoo on his right wrist, which I am sure would explain all this if we knew a bit more about the story.

The Flower of the Tea

“An illustration of the exterior of a tea-house. The mistress of the house is peeling fruit. On the table at the side are vessels containing coloured sugar-waters. In the sun, among these light-hearted people, watching mountains of pink blossom under a clear blue sky, it seems ridiculous to think of work and worry.”

—  Text from Raphael Tuck “Oilette” postcard of the Japan-British Exhibition, held in London in 1910. Illustration by Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1855-1938); as Menpes had visited Japan twice, in 1887 and 1902, and decorated his London home in Japanese style, he was a natural choice to paint this image. In the spirit of authenticity, the Japanese gardens at the Exhibition were created with trees, shrubs, wooden buildings, bridges and stones brought from Japan.

Of No Consequence

“The sea is a necessary evil; I suppose it is necessary because it was created. (Salt, I know, is vital; but why we can’t have salt without water is a mystery.) Mosquitoes, fleas, and rattlesnakes are also mysteries. The world would be a great deal better and vastly more comfortable without them; but my opinion is of no consequence to the universe, or I should have been consulted some time ago.”

— Kate Field in Hap-Hazard (1873)

Sell More Postcards

Tea with George Walker

A postcard of George W. Walker (1873-1911), a vaudeville actor and dancer who partnered with Bert Williams and toured the U.S. and Europe in “In Dahomey,” a landmark American musical comedy, the first musical written and played by African-Americans to be performed at a major Broadway theater. The plot involved a group who discover a pot of gold, go to Africa and buy the nation of Dahomey (today’s Benin). While in England, Walker was photographed by Cavendish Morton (1874-1939) and the photos are in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.