I FEEL PRETTY

"I Feel Pretty": In the Land of Porzellan, which is filled with ruffles and flowers and pretty, positive affirmation, one feels pretty (both inside and out) every single day. Bannered figurine, measuring 4.75" by 4.75" by 8" high.

THE HISTORY: In 1710, Meissen began fashioning "white gold" porcelain figurines in the style of the elaborate and ephemeral sugar sculptures which were made for royal banquet tables. Featuring aristocratic courting scenes, exotic casts of characters, musicians, myths, and Dresden lace shepherdesses, the porcelain figurines found their way into almost every noble and bourgeois 18th-century home, then enjoyed an ebullient revival in the 19th-century Second Rococo, and then enjoyed yet another revival in the middle of the 20th century thanks to Japanese post-war porcelain production and an irresistible nostalgia for the pastoral simplicity and aristocratic delights of bygone eras. 

THE COLLECTION: When I was little, I trailed my mother around antique stores and found magic in all the nooks and crannies: little stuffed animals, Oz books, beaded flapper dresses, and these charming but désuet, old-fashioned porcelains. Although the serious antiques critic will snub them as sentimentalized mass-market Rococo, I think they're delightful confections, with the prettiest coloring and the most charming expressions. I wanted to give them a fourth revival and bring them into the present with banners dancing above their heads, sporting a range of sayings (Latin mottoes, French quotations, popular sayings) which would give them another layer of meaning and a note of contemporary relevance. This project has been three years in the making, and I will just end by saying that if they seem simple and breezy: excellent. Quite a bit of hidden artistry has gone into making them seem so!