Featured Bali Art Deco wood carving. Crazy ashtray.....

Uhhhhhh, NOOOOOOOOO. I am going to disagree here, let us look at arguably the most important work of art in the western world, Michelangelo's frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
After 500 years of candles burning, torches, wood fires, plaster cracks from settlement issues, bla bla bla, these frescoes were in very bad shape. Something needed to be done to save this work that time & the elements had damaged to a distressing degree. It took 14 years to restore this work and only God knows how much money (vatican will not disclose how much) but the results speak for itself.

 

Dirt is dirt, not patina.

 

Now sometimes, dirt becomes imbedded, for instance a paint decorated piece where the dirt has imbedded in the paint, there is nothing you can do here except live with it as is. Each case is unique & each piece should be treated according to it's needs.

 

It all depends on resale value. Even if you agree that a work of art should be kept in its original condition, many, if not most, US buyers want "patina" and you have to consider if you are trying to maximize your profit or if your opinion on condition should take center stage. I always say if you are buying to keep, restore to your heart's content. If you are buying to sell, a light cleaning is all you need. I have some lovely brass items that my mother collected. I've seen pros and cons about polishing and the ones I've kept, I've polished. The ones I sold, I didn't.

 

Well, then obviously they had NOT been well or properly maintained! So restoration work was required to rejuvenate and preserve these. And as I mentioned, even with regular maintenance, there comes a time when you have to "get down on your knees and give it a good scrub".

Case in point: My family had a portrait of an ancestor painter by Winterhalter. It hung over the fireplace in a room that was used regularly for entertaining. It was not only "dusted" regularly, it was taken down and "cleaned and examined" on a schedule of some sort. Eventually it required a thorough cleaning due to fireplace soot, cigarette smoke, etc. A decade later it required the same attention. At that time it was recommended that we have it glazed (glass inserted), which we did. But that only CHANGED the maintenance, from cleaning to "airing" - when the family went to Long Island for the summer, the glass was removed so the oils could breath, particularly in New York City summer heat.

PS The thought of banning fires or smoking in the drawingroom was never even considered, and WHY would you move the portrait of one of your most illustrious ancestors to another, seldom used room??? Lifestyle played a big part in the daily cars of things such as this.

 

Why would you move any Winterhalter painting to another, seldom used room. I like Winterhalter, must be the romantic in me.

 

I like Winterhalter as well - though I must agree with someone who once remarked that his paintings looked more like they were done with a pastry tube than a brush...........

 

The problem here is trying to apply today's standards with those of long long ago, it won't work, trust me. 500 years ago is a long time, people lived in the dark, literally, when the sun went down, you went to bed! nuttin else to do really.

 

The peasant wedding...1567 flemish painting..



the Family..by Veronese...1567

Sorry James...trust is a little thin here.....
500 years ago......there was a lot a shit goin on....& y'know they had fire , eh !
I doubt any of these folks went to bed at sundown !

Maybe you meant 5000 years ago !

 

You're wrong, yes they had fire & candles which they burned, which caused soot, which covered the paint on the ceiling, which is now removed!
Mostly though, they went to bed when the sun went down! For 2 separate sleeps, which is the "normal" sleep pattern of humans, human sleep has been corrupted by the extinction of the night.

 

Now that this thread has gone completely off the rails...........

I read this interesting article about the night and how living in the dark back in the day wasn't all bad. Prior to the lighted age, people had 2 sleeps every night, first sleep till midnight when they got up for a bit before going back to bed for remainder of the night. Turns out that is the natural sleep pattern for humans so if you have sleeping issues, it could be related to our ancient natural sleep pattern being interrupted by the modern world.

"Once there, Ekirch relates in perhaps his most fascinating revelation, pre-industrial man slept a segmented sleep. He has found more than 500 references, from Homer onwards, to a "first sleep" that lasted until maybe midnight, and was followed by "second sleep". In between the two, people routinely got up, peed, smoked, read, chatted, had friends round, or simply reflected on the events of the previous day – and on their dreams. (Plenty also had sex, by all accounts far more satisfactorily than at the end of a hard day's labouring. Couples who copulated "after the first sleep", wrote a 16th-century French doctor, "have more enjoyment, and do it better".)

Experiments by Dr Thomas Wehr at America's National Institute of Mental Health appear to bear out the theory that this two-part slumber is man's natural sleeping pattern: a group of young male volunteers deprived of light at night for weeks at a time rapidly fell into the segmented sleep routine described in so many of Ekirch's documentary sources. It could even be, Wehr has theorised, that many of today's common sleeping disorders are essentially the result of our older, primal habits "breaking through into today's artificial world".

Of all this have we been robbed by the onward march of industrial lighting. (By we, of course, I mean most people in the developed world. It's worth remembering that there are still large parts of the globe where it's still up at sunrise, and to bed pretty soon after sundown.)

In the west, the ongoing elimination of the night through the 19th and 20th centuries may have performed miracles for economic activity, encouraging the development of an entire nocturnal sector of clubs, bars, restaurants, even supermarkets now open 24/7, not to mention all-night TV. But in some ways, argues Ekirch, rather than making night-time more accessible, we are actually risking its gradual extinction.

City-dwellers, and many others, have now all but lost their view of the heavens, a source of awe and wonder since the beginning of time. And since affordable artificial lighting now allows all of us to go to bed so much later, consolidating our sleep into one more or less continuous spell, our dreamlife has been disrupted and our understanding of ourselves impaired. "With darkness diminished," he says, "the opportunities for privacy and reflection are lessened." Which is perhaps not entirely a good thing. So thanks, William Murdoch."

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/31/life-before-artificial-light

 

Funny you should bring that up! I was just having this discussion with some one else on this forum! 1st and 2nd sleep has been the norm in my family for generations. We still accept as the norm and it was not unusual to hear of children being the result of 1st or 2nd sleep (after 1st being the normal or most expected).

In my youth, when I discovered that this was no longer the norm for most people I wrote a monograph on it that was published at the time...............I wonder if it is still read???????????

 

I wonder if sleep clinics are aware of all this? Surely they are?

 

Not sure about sleep clinics, but I have heard from friends that are trying to conceive that their doctors recommend "waking up in the middle of sleep" and trying to conceive then................ yeah, after 1st sleep................new idea? Um, not really.................

 

Extract from a personal conversation I was having with a fellow forum member early this week. This was my simple explanation of 1st & 2nd:

"Yeah, it was only a few hours ago that I went to bed. My sleep pattern is what many call "off balance" but in reality I sleep the way most of my family has slept for generations - the way our body clocks seem to deem it best. We are First and Second sleepers. First sleep seems to be a normal, but short light sleep. Then you wake up after a few hours. In modern society you are supposed to "roll over and go back to sleep" - I get up, read, write, maybe watch a bit television, maybe eat something, whatever, until I start to feel sleepy again - then it is back to bed for the Second Sleep. Usually this is a deeper, more refreshing sleep.

Historically many people slept in this manner. There have been modern studies done around it as well - particularly in the field of reproduction. It was not at all odd in our family to hear one of the children referred to as a First or Second Sleep baby due to personality and behavioral traits. There are now medical professionals recommending that couples having trouble conceiving sleep first, waken, try to conceive and then sleep again. It all sounds like hokum until you "remember" First and Second Sleep.

Of course, being something of a night owl, I have more often than not foregone the First Sleep and only taken in the Second Sleep. My theory has been that "Everyone should see the Sun RISE"..........................THEN go to bed.............."

 

I may not always be right....but I'm never wrong !

 

Those are my favourite threads, I often go off the rails. In threads, that is.

And now for something completely different.... here is a photo of two other 1930s Balinese Art Deco carvings that have always been cared for. As you can see, the wood of the little lion fish now has the same lovely patina (real patina):

The bird is a depiction of a Balinese educational story about greed. The bird wanted to catch both the lobster and the crab. But every time it got hold of the lobster, it was attacked by the crab, and when it got hold of the crab, it was attacked by the lobster. It ended up with neither.
The keris hilt is a rare Art Deco Brahmin priest's hilt on an antique keris. I bought the keris as it is now, I only added a vintage hilt ring.

 

Beautiful (and intriguing) pieces..................your home must be a wonderland of cultures and history................I envy that..................the most "exotic" my family ever got was to purchase carpets made by the "heathens" in the Far East.............which was anywhere beyond London.............even the Channel Islands were suspect..........but that was the Jersey Lilly's fault...................

 

Well, you know how it is, one thing leads to another.......
Cool carving, the legs of the bird appear very fragile & delicate.

 

Very nice piece indeed