Postcard Image

Postcard Image
As the Victorian era passed into the Edwardian and Roaring Twenties, a market developed for bisque and china bawdy novelties and figurines of women in revealing outfits. Although now most of these figurines seem more coy and cute than ribald and risque, in their time they symbolized the casting off of the perceived restraints of the Victorian era.

These little lovelies included bathing beauties, who came clad in swimsuits of real lace or in stylish painted beach wear, as well as mermaids, harem ladies, and nudies, who were meant to wear nothing more than an engaging smile. Also produced were flippers, innocent appearing figurines who reveal a bawdy secret when flipped over, and squirters, figurines that were meant to squirt water out of an appropriate orifice.

Most were manufactured in Germany from the late 1800s through the 1930s, often showing remarkable artistry and imagination, with Japan entering the market during World War I.

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Humorous Humidor


This humidor is hand painted on each side with a different bathing beauty striking a coy or comic pose.  The 7 inch tall container has a space under the lid for a moist sponge to keep the tobacco from drying out and is marked underneath with "B & Co. France," the mark of  L. Bernardaud and Company in the Limoges region.  It is also signed "L. Lemkuil," no doubt the painter of this porcelain piece.  Although the quality of the decoration is quite good, Lemkuil does not appear to have been a professional employed by Bernardaud, but was most likely a talented amateur who purchased the humidor as a blank.      





Lemkuil clearly copied the bawdy bathers from this series of postcards by French artist Xaiver Sager (1870-1930), one of the number of boudoir artists and illustrators who populated the pages of publications such as La Vie Parisienne, as well as innumerable postcards, with gorgeous gamines and kittenish coquettes.  This baigneuses series dates from the mid to late 1910s.







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