Photographs of Art Works

2000? Photo Print Reproduction of Adriaan Van Stalbemt, "Landscape with Fables," 1620. Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp: oil on panel. Photo £2.50 from J. Williams, Essex, UK, through BidStart, Nov., '17. This detailed landscape invites a search for known fables. I can identify the eagle who has flown off with a lamb in the upper left and the frogs desiring a king in the right foreground. I am not sure what animal is biting into an object in the left foreground. I am surprised not to find more fables. Are there more hidden here?

2000? Photo Print Reproduction of Aesop's Fable of the Fox and Crow. Wallpaper? £2.50 from J. Williams, Essex, UK, through BidStart, Nov., '17. This is a curious image of FC in the midst of a pleasing geometric design. The arrangement reminds me of walls in Pompeii. I wonder where this segment (?) might be.

Over a mantel in the dining room of Kenmore, the estate of George Washington's sister Betty and Fielding Lewis, is a chimney piece known as "The Aesop's Fable" mantelpiece or chimneypiece. A booklet, postcard, photos, and brochures, gifts of Margaret Carlson Lytton, Nov., '92 and April, '97, present the delightful plaster work, done by a stucco worker whose identity is one of the great questions of American design history. Further, professional photographer Dan Fitzpatrick has taken some high-density photographs to help in investigating the visual history of the overmantel's motifs. Legend says that it was George Washington himself who ordered the subject of Aesop's fables for the chimney piece and even that it was he who insisted on the inclusion of FC as a reminder to his young nieces and nephews to beware of flattery. In fact, FC is the clearest fable at the center of the piece.

1980? La Tapisserie de Bayeux. Edition Ville de Bayeux. Originally 50 F in France. Bought for $10 at Paul Rohe and Son, Chicago, Dec., '92. A complete reproduction of the Bayeux Tapestry in one-seventh of its original size. The original is 70 meters long and 50 centimeters high. I was delighted to find it still available three months after I had first seen it in this shop. The owner had at first insisted that I also buy The Bayeux Tapestry (which I already had for $29.95) for a combined price of $85. The chief value of this reproduction is that it is continuous--by my calculations some 28 feet long. Use this excellent reproduction with The Bayeux Tapestry (1985) and Les fables antiques de la broderie de Bayeux (1964).