openwork photos on Flickr

Ivory Crucifix with Silver Cross by Leo Cloma

16 2

Ivory Crucifix with Silver Cross

19th Century

Ivory, Kamagong and Silver

H:37” x L:54” x W:26 1/2 (94 cm x 137 cm x 67 cm)

Estimate: P 120,000

Lot 35 of the Leon Gallery Auction on 7 February 2015. See www.leon-gallery.com for more information.

This ivory crucifix is unusual, because seldom does one see the cross and base overlaid with silver. The ivory corpus is of the mid-19th century and has typical Philippine stance. It has a beautifully carved torso with extremely fine detailed hair. The entire face of the narrow kamagong cross is appliqued with an embossed and chased sheet of silver worked with an openwork design of interlacing vines. The extremely large cantoneras or terminals that decorate the ends of the cross are embossed with an elaborate design of C-scrolls, leaves and flowers and end in clam shells that are reminiscent of processional crosses or ciriales of the late 19th century. A large oval sunburst in silver attached to the arms of the cross serves as a backdrop of the corpus.

The base of the cross is appliqued in front and at the sides with small silver plaques embossed and chased with scenes of the Stations of the Cross on cartouches surrounded by rays. These plaques of silver are applied to follow the contour of the kamagong base, proof that the whole thing was Philippine-made. The execution of the human figures show great skill and are definitely the work of a master numismatist. Locally, the only one capable of making such a piece was the Zamora atelier which was active during the last quarter of the 19th century until the early 20th century.

Calvario in Ivory by Leo Cloma

5

Calvario

Binondo, Manila and San Miguel de Mayumo, Bulacan 1890s

ivory, silver, velvet, silvergilt threads,

baticuling wood, glass, enamels

Cristo::

wingspan: 8" (20 cm)

head to toe: 11" (28 cm)

body: 1 1/2" x 1" (4 cm x 3 cm)

Mater Dolorosa: 12" x 5" x 3 1/2" (30 cm x 13 cm x 9 cm)

Maria Magdalena: 7" x 4" x 3"(18 cm x 10 cm x 8c m)

San Juan Evangelista: 11" x 5" x 4"(28 cm x 13 cm x 10 cm)

Virina: 28" x 20" x 11"(71cm x 51cm x 28 cm)

Base: 7" x 26" x 16" (18 cm x 66 cm x 41 cm)

Opening bid: PHP 800,000

Property from the Don Maximo Viola Collection, San Miguel, Bulacan.

Provenance: Maximo Viola, Descendants of Maximo Viola

About the Work

By Augusto Marcelino Reyes Gonzalez III

Commissioned by D Maximo Viola y Sison (1857– 1933): a contemplative and reflective tabletop “Calvario” tableau. The “Cristo Expirante” has a resigned expression. It has long hair of “jusi” fibers and on its head are a silvergilt crown of thorns and “tres potencias” symbolizing the three powers of the Lord: Authority (Exousia in Greek), Ability (Dunamis in Greek), and Strength (Kratas in Greek), it wears a “tapis” loincloth of silvergilt repousse with flowers and leaves. The cross itself is of kamagong wood with linear lanite inlay terminating in silvergilt repousse “cantoneras” on three of its exposed sides; there are the requisite INRI plaque (“Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews,” in unusual silvergilt openwork) surmounting the cross, the reverse–painted red glass sun framed by silver rays above the Cristo, and the silver skull and bones representing Golgotha below the Cristo; the cross exudes silvergilt repousse rays with flowers and leaves which symbolize the Cristo’s divinity. The Cristo is flanked by the two thieves, San Dimas the good thief to the Cristo’s right and Gestas the unrepentant thief to the left, as dictated by tradition; San Dimas gestures towards the Cristo but Gestas ignores both of them; both San Dimas and Gestas are polychrome “de tallado” wooden figures with their carved “tapis” loincloths painted red for some reason. The other principal figures in the tableau are the grieving “Mater Dolorosa” (Mary the Sorrowful Mother) on the left, a silvergilt “rostrillo” (of the distinct 1890s type) around its face and a silvergilt heart pierced by a dagger on its breast, clad in a gold robe and blue cape; a distraught “San Juan Evangelista” (Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist) on the right, a silvergilt “paraguas” halo on its head, clad in a red robe and green cape; and a prostrate and desperate “Santa” Maria Magdalena (Saint Mary Magdalene) at the foot of the cross, a silvergilt “paraguas” halo on its head, clad in a purple robe and yellow cape. All the velvet vestments are embroidered with floral and foliar designs of the 1890s genre. In the tradition of nineteenth century (Victorian) “miniaturismo,” many charming glass baubles, reputedly created by the inmates of the Bilibid Prison (according to the prewar–postwar collector Felipe Kleimpell Hidalgo), dot the base of the tableau. There are country folk: a farmer (well –dressed, looks like a prince), his wife, daughter, and a female vendor with a basket on her head, all wearing cheery dresses. Plants and flowers. There are all kinds of animals: dogs, cats, birds, geese, sheep, goats, even antlered deer. There is a “Roman centurion” on a horse between the Cristo and San Dimas, although the horse looks like anything but one. The surface of the base is textured to simulate earth. Overall, it is a very interesting tableau. “Calvario” tableaux (Calvary scenes) were necessary appurtenances of Roman Catholic evangelization and catechesis in the past centuries. They depicted the Crucifixion: the “Cristo Expirante” (dying) or even the “Cristo Moribundo” (dead) Jesus Christ on the cross, his nearest and dearest --- “Mater Dolorosa” (Mary his Sorrowful Mother), “San Juan Evangelista” (Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist), and “Santa Maria Magdalena” (Saint Mary Magdalene) at the foot of the cross. To the faithful, they were daily reminders of the ultimate sacrifice by Jesus Christ. They were the visualizations of “Semana Santa” (Holy Week), “Viernes Santo” (Good Friday), “Las Siete Palabras” (The Seven Last Words), “La Procesion del Entierro” (Burial Procession), and “El Triduo Pascual” (Easter Triduum), all central themes of Roman Catholicism leading to Easter, the Resurrection of Christ, the most central theme of all.

Lot 139 of the Leon Gallery auction on June 17, 2023. Please see leon-gallery.com/auctions/The-Spectacular-Mid-Year-Auctio... for more information.

Chester - Chester's Commemorative Clock - You Can't Miss It! by Kimhaz - Here and There

10

Eastgate and Eastgate Clock in Chester, Cheshire, England, stand on the site of the original entrance to the Roman fortress of Deva Victrix. It is a prominent landmark in the city of Chester and is said to be the most photographed clock in England after Big Ben.

The original gate was guarded by a timber tower which was replaced by a stone tower in the 2nd century, and this in turn was replaced probably in the 14th century. The present gateway dates from 1768 and is a three-arched sandstone structure which carries the walkway forming part of Chester city walls. In 1899 a clock was added to the top of the gateway to celebrate the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria two years earlier. It is carried on openwork iron pylons, has a clock face on all four sides, and a copper ogee cupola. The clock was designed by the Chester architect John Douglas. The whole structure, gateway and clock, was designated as a Grade I listed building on 28 July 1955. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastgate_and_Eastgate_Clock

Chester is a city in northwest England, founded as a Roman fortress in the 1st century A.D. It's known for its extensive, well-preserved Roman walls made of local red sandstone. In the old city, the Rows is a shopping district distinguished by 2-level covered arcades and Tudor-style half-timbre buildings. A Roman amphitheatre, with ongoing excavations, lies just outside the old city's walls.

Abbey Church of St Mary & St Aldhelm, Malmesbury by The Shaldives

4

Official list entry

Heritage Category:Listed Building

Grade:I

List Entry Number:1269316

Date first listed:18-Jan-1949

Statutory Address: Abbey Church of St Mary and St Aldhelm, Malmesbury, Wiltshire

Location

Statutory Address: Abbey Church of St Mary and St Aldhelm, Malmesbury, Wiltshire

District: Wiltshire (Unitary Authority)

Parish:Malmesbury

National Grid Reference:ST 93280 87320

Details

Benedictine Abbey church, now parish church. Church founded c637 by Irish hermit Mailduib, monastery founded during abbacy of Aldhelm (c675-705), though no pre-C12 work survives; church probably begun under Bishop Roger (c1118-1139), and mostly dates from c1160-80 with a 9-bay aisled nave, transepts with E chapels, chancel, ambulatory with 3 radiating chapels, and S porch, rebuilt 1350-1450 above gallery level with clerestory, vault, crossing spire and W towers, a lengthened chancel and Lady Chapel; spire fell 1479. After Dissolution nave altered by William Stumpe of Abbey House (qv) and damaged W parts walled for the parish church, W tower fell c1662, W window by Goodridge 1830, restored W end 1903. MATERIALS: limestone ashlar with stone tiles. STYLE: late Romanesque style C12 work, Decorated Gothic style C14 extensions. PLAN: reduced since the Dissolution to 6 E bays of nave, with short lengths of transept walls and S corner of W end. EXTERIOR: the E end has a single N chancel bay and matching chancel arch with paired half shafts set in square piers with quarter round capitals, beneath the 2-centre arched line of the vault, and tas-de-charges with sunken mouchettes; the jambs of next E bay has matching aisle and triforium semi-circular jambs with chevron mouldings. Inner wall of N transept has blocked 2-centred aisle arch containing a C16 doorway and 3-light mullion window, and a blind round-arched doorway to the right; 6-bay N elevation has a blind former cloister wall along the aisle divided by buttresses, with a roll-top coping, and round-arched windows above a cill band containing C14 tracery, with a steep gable in the fourth bay containing a 3-light Decorated tracery window; at the left end is a blocked, round-arched C12 doorway with an archivolt of relief palmettes, and a cusped cinquefoil arch set within. The C14 clerestory has flying buttresses with tall pyramidal pinnacles between 3-light 2-centre arched windows, 2-light at the E end, with paterae to each side of the three E windows. S transept as N, 2 bays after the aisle arch, an incomplete arcade of interlacing round arches with a chevron moulding

beneath 2 storeys of round-arched windows with splayed reveals, the lower windows flanked by narrow round-arched recesses containing inner arches open to a passage through the walls. The arcade continues along the former external side of the S transept and to the 9-bay S elevation, otherwise as the N side with a Decorated cusped openwork parapet to aisle and nave, and with second and third bays from E containing C14 2-centre windows with Decorated tracery. C12 porch rebuilt externally in C14 with angle buttresses, has a very fine splayed round-arched entrance of 3 orders, without capitals, richly carved with iconographic Biblical scenes set in oval panels, and separated by richly carved mouldings, and a hood with dog head stops. Inside is a similarly-moulded doorway and C14 door, beneath a tympanum of Christ in Glory supported by 2 angels, with along both sides the round-arched arcade above a bench, beneath finely-carved lunettes each of 6 Apostles with a horizontal flying angel above. In the E re-entrant is a square stair turret with a pyramidal roof. The incomplete W end has a massive clasping buttress stair turret to the S corner in 4 stages separated by moulded strings, blank from the ground, a pair of blind round-arched panels containing lower arched panels to the second stage, an arcade of narrow interlacing round-arches to the third, and a taller arcade to the fourth stage with square section mouldings; the bay to the left as the S aisle, with a pair of round arches with flanking half arches at the second stage enriched with chevron moulding, containing pairs of round-arches; above is an arcade of 5 round-arches, and a blind wall topped with a C20 parapet. The S side of the central entrance bay has the jamb of a round-arched entrance with 2 orders carved as the S porch and plain capitals, beneath the jamb of a large C14 W window with the springers of 4 cusped transoms. INTERIOR: nave arcade has round shafts with scallop capitals to sharply moulded 2-centre arches, with billet mouldings to the 2 E arches, and billet hoods with dog head stops; the triforium has blind round arches with attached shafts to cushion capitals, a chevron moulding, with an arcade of 4 similar arches within; splayed clerestory windows have rere arches. An attached shaft extends up from the piers to C14 tas-de-charges, and a lierne vault with carved bosses. A 'Watching Loft' is corbelled out above the fourth pier on the S side of the nave, with plain openings and billet moulded cornice. The C12 aisles have pointed quadripartite vaults and benches,

the blind arcade of the outside beneath the windows, on the S side without the middle columns; the E end bays have C15 stone screens with Perpendicular tracery. To the left of the entrance is a winder stair to the C14 parvis over the porch, which has C20 panelling. MEMORIALS: running counter-clockwise from the entrance, a wall monument to Joseph Cullerne, d1764, a marble panel with raised bracketed top section; wall monument to Robert Greenway, d1751, a marble shield; wall monument to Bartholomew Hiren, d1703, a panel with a broken pediment; at the W end, a wall monument to Dame Cyscely Marshal, d 162?, with a slate panel in a carved alabaster frame; to the left a late C17 cartouche with drapes; in the N aisle, a dresser tomb of King Athelston, d939, with narrow buttresses to the sides, with a recumbent figure of the King with his feet on a lion, and a vaulted canopy behind his head; wall monument to Elizabeth Warneford, d1631, a slate plaque set in a moulded alabaster frame with shields along the sides, a cartouche, and a segmental cornice over; wall tablet to Isaac Watts, d 1789, an oval marble panel set in slate; wall tablet to Johannes Willis, mid C18, a marble panel with gadroon beneath and a cornice; wall tablet to GI Saunders, d1806, with a round-arched top and moulded frame; wall tablet to Elizabeth George, d1806, a well-carved cartouche with putti below; wall tablet to Edward Cullerne, d1765, marble with yellow marble inserts and a pediment; wall tablet to Mary Thomson, d1723, a stone panel with draped surround including an hour glass; wall tablet facing the entrance to Willima Robernce (?), d1799, a stone frame including a small inscribed pointing hand in the corner. Set in the chancel floor are a group of 8 brasses from late C17 to mid C18. FITTINGS: include a round C15 font from St Mary Westport (qv), with a turned base and fluted sides; at the W end of the nave, is the font used since the C17; in the S aisle, a glass case containing a verge of 1615, carved with features of the Abbey; at the E end the S aisle is the parish chest dated 1638, panelled with 3 locks; communion rail of c1700 with twisted balusters. In the parvis are kept 4 volumes of an illustrated manuscript Bible of 1407. GLASS: mostly C14 glass in the N aisle; the Luce window in the S aisle designed by Burne Jones and made by William Morris. HISTORICAL NOTE: the use of pointed arches and vaults in the aisles is structurally advanced and transitional with Early Gothic, and links Malmesbury with subsequent West Country churches, but the carving is Anglo Saxon in character, and probably borrowed from manuscript illustrations. The conventual buildings stood on the N side of the church; for the reredorter and sections of the precinct wall, see

Abbey House, Market Cross (qv), and for the guest house, see Old Bell Hotel, Gloucester Street (qv). (Victoria History of the Counties of England: Crowley DA: Wiltshire: 1991-: 157; Archaeologia: Brakspear H: Malmesbury Abbey: 1912-; Smith MQ: The Sculptures of the S Porch of Malmesbury Abbey: Malmesbury: 1973-; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Wiltshire: London: 1963-: 321-327; Midmer R: English Medieval Monasteries 1066-1540: London: 1976-: 212).

Durga Temple-Aihole-Bagalkote District-Karnataka by R.K. Lakshmi

7 6

The Durga temple is a medieval Hindu temple located in Aihole in the state of Karnataka, India. It is part of a pending UNESCO world heritage site. Apart from the fine carvings, it is famous as a rare apsidal or round-ended Hindu temple, representing a final stage in the transition of the ancient chaitya hall tradition to later Hindu temple architecture.

The temple was probably built in the late 7th century by the dynasty of the Chalukyas; it is the largest of a group of over 120 temples at Aihole.The architecture of the temple is predominantly Dravida with Nagara style also is used in certain areas. The Durga Temple belongs to Badami Chalukya architecture.

Even though the temple features a Durga sculpture, the origin of the name is not because of its dedication to Durga goddess, but because Durga means protector or a fortress. The temple formed part of a fortification probably of the Marathas.

The original dedication of the temple may have been to the sun god Surya, or perhaps either Vishnu or Shiva as the representations of Vishnu are as numerous as those of Shiva. The most original feature of the temple is a peristyle delimiting an ambulatory around the temple itself and whose walls are covered with sculptures of different gods or goddesses. The rounded ends at the rear or sanctuary end include a total of three layers: the wall of the sanctuary itself, the main temple wall beyond a passageway running behind this, and a pteroma or ambulatory as an open loggia with pillars, running all round the building. Stone grilles with various geometrical openwork patterns ventilate the interior from the ambulatory. The heart of the shrine (garba griha) is surmounted by a tower which announces the future higher towers shikharas and vimanas.The amalaka that once crowned the shikara is on the ground nearby

From the front the temple appears much more conventional; two staircases provide access to the porch, with many richly carved relief panels, including roundels with groups of lovers. The sober and square pillars are decorated with characters around the porch and the entrance to the peristyle. The parapet is carved with niches and small animals. The porch gives access to rooms with pillars ('mukhamantapa' and "sabhamantapa") to get into the sanctuary, the heart of the shrine (garba griha). There is now no cult image in the sanctuary, and two ceiling panels have been removed and are now in the National Museum, New Delhi.

Plan of the temple

The plan of the temple is oblong and apsidal. It means that the corridor with pillars between the porch and the heart of the shrine encompasses the heart of shrine and allows worshipers to perform the parikrama (circumambulation ritual). This apse gives outward through openings between the pillars.

The shape of the temple, in Indian traditional architecture, is known as Gajaprasta which means the resemblance to the back of an elephant. The temple's unusual apsidal form is thought to imitate the earlier Buddhist chaitya halls, but recent studies suggest that apsidal designs in Indian architecture were a pan-Indian tradition, which was shared by various faiths from the 2nd century BCE.

Hungarian embroidery vintage doily by wondertrading

19 2

This amazing Hungarian embroidered doily originally bought as a souvenir in the sixties I think. The colors are still vibrant, the stitches are so even and the openwork is sooo intricate.

Wall Bourne Hall / II by Images George Rex

6

Architects: A. G. Sheppard Fidler and Associates, 1970, included in the Grade II listing. Cast-concrete openwork wall surrounds a children's play area outside the junior library. Bourne Hall, Ewell, Borough of Epsom & Ewell, Surrey, UK.

(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Table lamp XXIV - Stilla by Przemek Krawczynski

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: calabarte.com/

FOLLOW CALABARTE ON FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/calabarte

TABLE LAMP XXIV STILLA

The head of the lamp is made of Senegalese gourd. Its diameters is 20 cm.

The height of the whole lamp is 21 cm. The base created by Lech Kostyszak from Unique Wood Design is made of Padouk wood.

The diameter of the base is 18,5 cm. The perforation is made by drills of 18 diameters differing by only 0,1 mm. There are also openwork carvings.

The white carvings are the deeper layers of wood which allow some light to pass through it.

On the top of the lamp there is a 15 mm wide star ruby embedded.

Bulgaria Burgas Childrens' Playground in the city park mailed 1960s (2) by Mémoire 2Cité

6 3

mémoire2cité - Sols absorbants, formes arrondies et couleurs vives, les aires de jeux standardisées font désormais partie du paysage urbain. Toujours les mêmes toboggans sécurisés, châteaux forts en bois et animaux à ressort. Ces non-lieux qu’on finit par ne plus voir ont une histoire, parallèle à celle des différentes visions portées sur l’enfant et l’éducation. En retournant jouer au xixe siècle, sur les premiers playgrounds des États-Unis, on assiste à la construction d’une nation – et à des jeux de société qui changent notre vision sur les balançoires du capitalisme. Ce texte est paru dans le numéro 4 de la revue Jef Klak « Ch’val de Course », printemps-été 2017. La version ici publiée en ligne est une version légèrement remaniée à l’occasion de sa republication dans le magazine Palais no 27 1, paru en juin 2018. la video içi www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwj1wh5k5PY The concept for adventure playgrounds originated in postwar Europe, after a playground designer found that children had more fun with the trash and rubble left behind by bombings -inventing their own toys and playing with them- than on the conventional equipment of swings and slides. Narrator John Snagge was a well-known voice talent in the UK, working as a newsreader for BBC Radio - jefklak.org/le-gouvernement-des-playgrounds/ - www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/chasing-the-vanishing-p... or children, playgrounds are where magic happens. And if you count yourself among Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, you probably have fond memories of high steel jungle gyms and even higher metal slides that squeaked and groaned as you slid down them. The cheerful variety of animals and vehicles on springs gave you plenty of rides to choose from, while a spiral slide, often made of striped panels, was a repeated thrill. When you dismounted from a teeter-totter, you had to be careful not to send your partner crashing to the ground or get hit in the head by your own seat. The tougher, faster kids always pushed the brightly colored merry-go-round, trying to make riders as dizzy as possible. In the same way, you’d dare your sibling or best friend to push you even higher on the swing so your toes could touch the sky. The most exciting playgrounds would take the form of a pirate ship, a giant robot, or a space rocket.

“My husband would look at these big metal things and go, ‘Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!'” - insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...

Today, these objects of happy summers past have nearly disappeared, replaced by newer equipment that’s lower to the ground and made of plastic, painted metal, and sometimes rot-resistant woods like cedar or redwood. The transformation began in 1973, when the U.S. Congress established the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which began tracking playground injuries at hospital emergency rooms. The study led to the publication of the first Handbook for Public Playground Safety in 1981, which signaled the beginning of the end for much of the playground equipment in use. (See the latest PPS handbook here.) Then, the American Society for Testing and Materials created a subcommittee of designers and playground-equipment manufacturers to set safety standards for the whole industry. When they published their guidelines in 1993, they suggested most existing playground surfaces, which were usually asphalt, dirt, or grass, needed to be replaced with pits of wood or rubber mulch or sand, prompting many schools and parks to rip their old playgrounds out entirely.

Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)

That said, removing and replacing playground equipment takes money, so a certain amount of vintage playground equipment survived into the next millennium—but it’s vanishing fast. Fortunately, Brenda Biondo, a freelance journalist turned photographer, felt inspired to document these playscapes before they’ve all been melted down. Her photographs capture the sculptural beauty and creativity of the vintage apparatuses, as well as that feeling of nostalgia you get when you see a piece of your childhood. After a decade of hunting down old playgrounds, Biondo published a coffee-table book, 2014’s Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playgrounds, 1920-1975, which includes both her photographs of vintage equipment and pages of old playground catalogs that sold it.

Starting this November, Biondo’s playground photos will hit the road as part of a four-year ExhibitsUSA traveling show, which will also include vintage playground postcards and catalog pages from Biondo’s collection. The show will make stops in smaller museums and history centers around the United States, passing through Temple, Texas; Lincoln, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri; and Greenville, South Carolina. Biondo talked to us on the phone from her home in small-town Colorado, where she lives with her husband and children.

This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, "This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast." (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, “This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast.” (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)Collectors Weekly: What inspired you to photograph playgrounds?Biondo: In 2004, I happened to be at my local park with my 1-year-old daughter, who was playing in the sandbox. I had just switched careers, from freelance journalism to photography, and I was looking for a starter project. I looked around the playground and thought, “Where is all the equipment that I remember growing up on?” They had new plastic contraptions, but nothing like the big metal slides I grew up with. After that, I started driving around to other playgrounds to see if any of this old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly. That got to me.I felt like somebody should be documenting this equipment, because it was such a big part—and a very good part—of so many people’s childhoods. I couldn’t find anybody else who was documenting it, and I didn’t see any evidence that the Smithsonian was collecting it. As far as I could tell, it was just getting ripped up and sent to the scrap heap. At first, I started traveling around Colorado where I live, visiting playgrounds. Eventually, I took longer trips around the Southwest, and then I started looking for playgrounds whenever I was in any other parts of the country, like around California and the East Coast. It was a long-term project—shot over the course of a decade. And every year that I was shooting, it got harder and harder to find those pieces of old equipment.

This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: How did you find them?

Biondo: I would just drive around. I started hunting down local elementary schools and main-street playgrounds as well as neighborhood playgrounds. If I had a weekend, I would say, “OK, I’m going to drive from my home three hours east to the Kansas border, stay overnight and drive back.” Along the way, I would stop at every little town that I’d pass. They usually had one tiny main-street playground and one elementary school. I never knew what I was going to find. In a poorer area, a town often doesn’t have much money to replace playground equipment, whereas more affluent areas usually have updated their playgrounds by now. It was a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes, I’d drive for hours and not really find anything—or I’d find one old playground after the other, because I happened to be in an area where equipment hadn’t been replaced.

I couldn’t get to every state, so I had to shoot where I was. I think there certainly are still old playgrounds out there, especially in small towns. But there’s fewer and fewer of them every year. My book has something like 170 photographs. I would guess that half the equipment pictured is already gone. Sometimes, I’d go back to a playground with a nice piece of equipment a year later to reshoot it, maybe in different lighting or a different season, and so often it had been removed. That pressured me to get out as often as I could because if I waited a few weeks, that piece might not be there anymore.

A 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.

a 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.

Collectors Weekly: What did you learn about playground history?

Biondo: I didn’t know American playgrounds started as part of the social reform or progressive movement of the early 1900s. Reformers hoped to keep poor inner-city immigrant kids safe and out of trouble. Back then, city children were playing in the streets with nothing to do, and when cars became more popular, kids started to get hit by motorists. Child activists started building playgrounds in big cities like Boston, Chicago, and New York as a way to help and protect these kids. These reformers felt they could build model citizens by teaching cooperation and manners through playgrounds. These early main-street parks would also have playground leaders who orchestrated activities such as games and songs.

“I started driving to playgrounds to see if any old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly.”

In the late 1800s, Germans developed what they called “sand gardens,” which are just piles of sand where kids can come dig and build things. There were few of those in the United States as well. But by the early 1900s, the emphasis of playgrounds was on the apparatuses, things kids could climb on or swing on.

Soon after I started researching playground history, I happened to stumble on an eBay auction for a 1926 catalog that the playground manufacturers used to send to schools. At that point, I wasn’t thinking of doing a book, but I thought I could do something with it. I won the catalog; I paid, like, $12 for it. And it was so interesting because I could see this vintage equipment when it was brand new and considered modern and advanced. The manufacturers boasted about how safe it was and how it was good for building both muscles and imaginations.

After that, I would always search on eBay for playground catalogs, and I ended up with about three dozen catalogs from different manufacturers. My oldest is 1916, and my newest is from 1975. So I would take a photograph of some type of merry-go-round, and then I might find that same merry-go-round in a 1930 catalog. Often in the book, I pair my picture with the page from the catalog showing when it was first manufactured. I discovered a couple dozen manufacturers, which tended to be located in the bigger industrial areas with steel manufacturing, like Trenton, New Jersey, and Kokomo and Litchfield, Indiana. Pueblo, Colorado, even had a playground manufacturer. Burke and GameTime were big 20th century companies, and actually are among few still in existence.

The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: I recently came across an old metal slide whose steps had the name of the manufacturer, American, forged in openwork letters.

Biondo: I love those. One of the last pages in the book shows treads from six different slides, and they each had the name of their manufacturer in them, including Porter, American, and Burke. One time when I was traveling, I did a quick side trip to a small town with an elementary school. In the parking lot was this old metal slide with the American step treads, lying on its side. You could tell it had just been ripped off out of the concrete, which was still attached to the bottom, and was waiting for the steel recyclers to come and take it away.

I thought, “Oh my gosh, just put it on eBay! Somebody is going to want that. Don’t melt it down.” But nobody thinks about this stuff getting thrown away when it should be preserved. If you go on eBay, you can find a lot of those small animals on springs that little kids ride, because they’re small enough to be shipped. Once I saw someone selling one of those huge rocket ships, which had been dismantled, on eBay, but I don’t know if anybody ever bid on it. It’s rare to see the big stuff, because it is so expensive to ship. It’s like, “What kind of truck do you need to haul this thing away?” I don’t know of anyone who’s collecting those pieces, but I hope somebody is.

A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name "American" in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name “American” in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: It seems like an opportunity for both starting a collection or repurposing the material.

Biondo: I photographed many of the apparatuses as if they were sculptures because they have really cool designs and colors. Even when they’re worn down, the exposed layers of paint can be beautiful. Hardly anybody stops to look at it that way. People drive by and think, “Oh, there’s an old, rusty, rundown playground.” But if you take the time to look closely at this stuff, it’s really interesting. Just by looking at these pieces, you can picture all the kids who played on them.

Collectors Weekly: Aren’t people nostalgic for their childhood playgrounds?

Biondo: While I was taking the pictures, I visited Boulder, Colorado, which is a very affluent community. I was sure there would be no old playground equipment there. When I was driving around, all of a sudden, I looked over and saw this huge rocket ship. It turns out that one of the original NASA astronauts, Scott Carpenter, grew up in Boulder, and this playground was built in the ’60s to honor their hometown boy. Because of that, the citizens of Boulder never wanted to take down the rocket ship. One of the first exhibitions of this photography project happened in Boulder, and at the opening, I sold four prints of that rocket ship. People would come up to me at the exhibition, and they’d go, “Oh my gosh, I grew up playing on this when I was a little kid! Now, my kids are playing on it, and I’m so excited that I can get a picture of it and hang it in their bedroom.” So people have a strong nostalgic attachment to this equipment. It’s sad that most of it’s not going to be around for much longer.

A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship play set seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship playset seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: Besides slides and animals on springs, what were some other pieces that were common in older playgrounds?

Biondo: I didn’t come across as many old swings as I expected. I thought they would be all over the place, but I guess they’re gone now because they were so easy to replace. I tended to find merry-go-rounds more frequently—you know, the one where you’d run around pushing them and then jump on. When my kids were younger, they’d go out playground hunting with me, and the merry-go-rounds were their favorite things. They’re just so fun. The other thing you don’t find often is the seesaw or teeter-totter, and that was my favorite.The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado's R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado’s R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Before I started this project, I didn’t know there was such a variety of equipment. I figured I’d see seesaws, swings, slides, and merry-go-rounds. But I had no idea there were such things as revolving swings, which would be attached to a spinning pole via outstretched metal arms. Many mid-century pieces had themes from pop culture like “The Wizard of Oz,” “Cinderella,” “Denis the Menace,” cowboys and Indians, and Saturday-morning cartoons. During the Space Age, you started to see pieces of equipment shaped like rocket ships and satellites, because in the ’60s, Americans were so excited about space exploration. What was going on in the broader culture often got reflected in playground equipment.

Pursuing the catalogs was eye-opening. I live about an hour and a half south of Denver, so I often looked for playgrounds around the city. There, I’d find these contraptions where were shaped like umbrella skeletons, but then they had these rings hanging off the spindles. I’ve never seen them outside of Colorado. Then I bought a 1930s catalog from the manufacturer in Pueblo, Colorado, which is only 45 minutes from me, and it featured this apparatus. Later, I met people in Denver who’d say, “Oh, yeah, I remember that thing as a kid. It’s kind of like monkey bars where you had to try and get from ring to ring swinging and hanging by your arms.” There was so much variety, and even so many variations on the basics.I have a cool catalog from 1926 from the manufacturer Mitchell, which doesn’t exist anymore. I looked at one of the contraptions they advertised and I was like, “Oh my God, this looks like a torture device!” It was their own proprietary apparatus and maybe it didn’t prove to be very popular. I had never seen something like that on a playground. There probably weren’t very many of them installed.

This strange Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Brenda Biondo says she's never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

This Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Biondo’s never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: After a while, were you able to date pieces just by looking at them?

Biondo: From looking at the catalogs, I certainly got a better idea of when things were built. But there were a handful things I couldn’t find in the catalogs. You can guess the age by knowing the design, as well as by looking at the amount of wear and the height of the piece. Usually, the taller it was, the older it was. One of the oldest slides I photographed was probably from the ’30s. I climbed to the top to shoot it as if the viewer were going to go down the slide. Up there, the place where you’d sit before sliding had been used for so many years by so many kids that I could see an outline of all the butts worn into the metal. You can imagine all the children who must have gone down that slide to wear the metal down like that.

This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: How did Modernism influence playground design?

Biondo: In 1953, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a competition for playground design. Modern Art was just getting popular, and the idea of incorporating the theories of Modernist design into utilitarian objects was in the air, and was translated into playgrounds for several years. I have a 1967 catalog that features very abstract playground equipment made from sinuous blobs of poured concrete. And you’ve probably seen some of it, but there’s not too much of that around. That’s another example of how broader cultural trends were reflected in playgrounds.

When most people think of playgrounds, they say, “Oh, that’s a kiddie subject. There’s not much to it.” But when you start looking into them, you realize playgrounds are a fascinating piece of American culture—they go back a hundred years and played a part in most Americans’ lives. These playground pieces are icons of our childhood.

Collectors Weekly:What was the impact of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which launched in 1973?

Biondo: Things started to change after that, which is why I limited to book to apparatuses made before 1975. New playgrounds were starting to be build out of plastic and fiberglass. I looked up the statistics, and according to the little research I’ve done—contrary to what you’d expect—there’s not much difference in the number of injuries on older equipment versus injuries on equipment today. A “New York Times” article from 2011 called “Can a Playground Be Too Safe?” explains that studies show when playground equipment was really high and just had asphalt underneath it and not seven layers of mulch, thekids knew they had to be careful because they didn’t want to fall. Nowadays, when everything is lower and there’s so much mulch, kids are just used to jumping down and falling and catching themselves. So kids learned to assess risk by playing on the older equipment. They also learned to challenge themselves because it is a little scary to go up to the top of the thing.

This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.

At my local park where you have new equipment, the monkey bars aren’t that high and there’s mulch below it, but a child fell and broke their arm last year. When I was talking to the principal at the school where they had just torn out that old American slide, I asked her, “Why did you replace the equipment?” She said, “We felt the parents in the community were expecting to have a little bit newer and nicer equipment. And this stuff had been here for so long.” And I said, “Have you seen a difference in injury rates since you put up your newer equipment?” She replied, “I’ve been a principal here several years, and we never had a serious broken-bone injury on the playground until four months ago on the new equipment.”

There were some nasty accidents in the ‘60s and ’70s, where kids got their arms or their heads caught in the contraptions. Those issues definitely needed to be assessed. What’s interesting is the Consumer Product Safety Commission never issued requirements, just suggested guidelines. But manufacturers felt that if their equipment didn’t meet those guidelines, they’d be vulnerable to liability. Everybody went to the extreme, making everything super safe so they wouldn’t risk getting sued.A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

In the last decade, people have been looking at playground-equipment design and trying to make it more challenging and more encouraging of imaginative play, but without making it more likely someone’s going to get injured. And adults, I think, are realizing kids are spending more time indoors on devices so they want to do everything they can to encourage kids to still get outside, run around, and climb on things.

Collectors Weekly: You don’t need a playground to hurt yourself. When I was a kid, I fell off a farm post and broke my arm.Biondo: Oh, yeah, kids have been falling out trees forever—they always want to climb stuff. Playground politics are always evolving. Even in the 1920s, the catalogs talked about how safe their equipment was, and they were selling these 30-foot slides. Sometimes, I’d be out with my family on a vacation, and we’d make a little side tour to look for an old playground to shoot. My husband would look at these big metal things and go, “Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!” because they were so huge and rickety. But back then, these were very safe pieces of equipment compared to what kids had been playing on before.

A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: Growing up in the 1980s, I always hated the new fiberglass slides because I’d end up with all these tiny glass shards in my butt.

Biondo: Yeah, I remember that, too. It’s always something. It is fun to talk to people about playgrounds because it reminds them of all the fun stuff they did as kids. When people see pictures of these metal slides, they tell me, “Oh my gosh, I remember getting such a bad burn from a metal slide one summer!” The metal would get so hot in the sun, and kids would take pieces of wax paper with them to sit on so they’d go flying down the slide. I have some old postcards that show playgrounds from the early ’20s. The wood seesaws not only were huge, but they had no handles so you had hold on to the sides of the board where you sat. I’m looking at that like, “Oh my God!” It’s all relative.

playground_postcard_milwaukee

Kids ride the rocking-boat seesaw at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, park in this postcard postmarked 1910.

(To see more of Brenda Biondo’s playground photos and vintage catalog pages, pick up a copy of her book, “Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playground, 1920-1975.” To find an exhibition of Biondo’s playground project, or to bring it to your town, visit the ExhibitsUSA page. To learn more about creative mid-century playgrounds around the globe, also pick up, “The Playground Project” by Xavier Salle and Vincent Romagny.) insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...

Liège, Wallonië, Église St.-Antoine, organ balcony, detail by groenling

4

The organ is from 1624, the builder unknown ; the balcony railing is from 1750, also unknown

National Museum of Ireland, Dublin, April 2008 by Leon Yaakov

7 2

Details from the exhibition - ivory carved items from the Far East..

Ivory, as well as bone, has been used for various items since early times, when China still had its own species of elephant. Figures were typically uncolored, or just with certain features colored in ink, often just black, but sometimes a few other colors. By the 18th century China had a considerable market in items such as figures made for export to Europe, and from the Meiji Period Japan followed. Japanese ivory for the domestic market had traditionally mostly been small objects such as netsuke, for which ivory was used from the 17th century, or little inlays for sword-fittings and the like, but in the later 19th century, using African ivory.

A specialty was round puzzle balls of openwork that contained a series of smaller balls, freely rotating, inside them, a tribute to the patience of Asian craftsmen.

IMG_8492 by James Glazier

2

Orangery, Erlangen, Middle Franconia, Franconia, Bavaria, Germany by Billy Wilson

9

"Erlangen 's Orangery is architecturally assigned to Erlangen Castle and is located in the castle garden belonging to the residence.

Margrave Christian Ernst of Brandenburg-Bayreuth gave his wife the recently completed Erlangen Castle in 1703. The orangery itself was built a short time later, between 1704 and 1706, on behalf of Margravine Elisabeth Sophie as part of the Erlanger palace complex. It once served the Margrave couple as a greenhouse with living rooms and a ballroom.

Due to its “teatro” shape, derived from the oval floor plan, the arrangement itself and its dual function as a greenhouse and “maison de plaisir” make the orangery an important architectural and historical monument in the entire palace ensemble.

In 1818, after the death of the Dowager Margravine Sophie Caroline, the Orangery became the property of the Friedrich-Alexander University and became the seat of various faculties, offices and offices. Since 1914, in addition to the Institute for Church Music, the art history seminar has also been located in their rooms.

The Orangery in Erlangen is built on a semi-oval floor plan. The ends form pavilions that curve parallel to the garden axis. The middle part, in which the stucco-covered water hall is located, does not continue the curves, but has a rectangular floor plan that is visible to the outside like a risalit. The three-gate portal is the main focus on the south facade. The swinging wings culminate in the triumphal arch architecture, which forms the entrance to the water hall. The central, round-arched gate stands out from the side gates, which are also round-arched, in that it is framed by two pairs of free-standing columns and spanned by an openwork segmental gable. The entrances on the left and right are each framed by a solid column. The bases of the columns are decorated with plant (vegetable) motifs. Only the gable of the central portal breaks the regularity of the attic zone. Rich, figurative and ornamental jewelry here represents princely power and pays homage to fertility. Figures of the four seasons rise on the projecting bases of the cranked attic zone. Although the outer wall of the water hall is not curved but straight compared to the wings, the architectural decoration gives the impression that the wall is swinging out convexly.

Erlangen (German pronunciation: [ˈɛʁlaŋən]; Mainfränkisch: Erlang, Bavarian: Erlanga) is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 116,062 inhabitants (as of 30 March 2022), it is the smallest of the eight major cities (Großstadt) in Bavaria. The number of inhabitants exceeded the threshold of 100,000 in 1974, making Erlangen a major city according to the statistical definition officially used in Germany.

Together with Nuremberg, Fürth, and Schwabach, Erlangen forms one of the three metropolises in Bavaria. With the surrounding area, these cities form the European Metropolitan Region of Nuremberg, one of 11 metropolitan areas in Germany. The cities of Nuremberg, Fürth, and Erlangen also form a triangle on a map, which represents the heartland of the Nuremberg conurbation.

An element of the city that goes back a long way in history, but is still noticeable, is the settlement of Huguenots after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Today, many aspects of daily life in the city are dominated by the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Siemens technology group.

Erlangen is located on the edge of the Middle Franconian Basin and at the floodplain of the Regnitz River. The river divides the city into two halves of about equal sizes. In the western part of the city, the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal lies parallel to the Regnitz.

Franconia (German: Franken, pronounced [ˈfʁaŋkŋ̍]; Franconian: Franggn [ˈfrɑŋɡŋ̍]; Bavarian: Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: Fränkisch).

Franconia is made up of the three Regierungsbezirke of Lower, Middle and Upper Franconia in Bavaria, the adjacent, Franconian-speaking, South Thuringia, south of the Thuringian Forest—which constitutes the language boundary between Franconian and Thuringian— and the eastern parts of Heilbronn-Franconia in Baden-Württemberg.

Those parts of the Vogtland lying in Saxony (largest city: Plauen) are sometimes regarded as Franconian as well, because the Vogtlandian dialects are mostly East Franconian. The inhabitants of Saxon Vogtland, however, mostly do not consider themselves as Franconian. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the Hessian-speaking parts of Lower Franconia west of the Spessart (largest city: Aschaffenburg) do consider themselves as Franconian, although not speaking the dialect. Heilbronn-Franconia's largest city of Heilbronn and its surrounding areas are South Franconian-speaking, and therefore only sometimes regarded as Franconian. In Hesse, the east of the Fulda District is Franconian-speaking, and parts of the Oden Forest District are sometimes regarded as Franconian for historical reasons, but a Franconian identity did not develop there.

Franconia's largest city and unofficial capital is Nuremberg, which is contiguous with Erlangen and Fürth, with which it forms the Franconian conurbation with around 1.3 million inhabitants. Other important Franconian cities are Würzburg, Bamberg, Bayreuth, Ansbach and Coburg in Bavaria, Suhl and Meiningen in Thuringia, and Schwäbisch Hall in Baden-Württemberg.

The German word Franken—Franconians—also refers to the ethnic group, which is mainly to be found in this region. They are to be distinguished from the Germanic people of the Franks, and historically formed their easternmost settlement area. The origins of Franconia lie in the settlement of the Franks from the 6th century in the area probably populated until then mainly by the Elbe Germanic people in the Main river area, known from the 9th century as East Francia (Francia Orientalis). In the Middle Ages the region formed much of the eastern part of the Duchy of Franconia and, from 1500, the Franconian Circle. The restructuring of the south German states by Napoleon, after the demise of the Holy Roman Empire, saw most of Franconia awarded to Bavaria." - info from Wikipedia.

Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.

Now on Instagram.

Become a patron to my photography on Patreon or donate.

Chldren's Playground & Paddling Pool, Cypress Hills Provincial Park, Saskatchewan, Canada, PU-1972 by Mémoire 2Cité

6 1