Left, Hobbs Brockunier “Tree of Life” epergne base c.
Other pieces, like the matching spooner, don disembodied digits holding vessels aloft, whose pattern name and symbolic elements conjure origin myths and invite the contemplation of procreation.Īdditional “handy” examples from the pattern include compotes, cake stands, and an epergne, that invited diners to admire, though not necessarily touch, disembodied hands balancing pronouncedly phallic shapes. Two views of a Hobbs Brockunier Glass Co. of Wheeling, West Virginia, anyone seeking cream and sugar for hot beverages faced being forced into fondling miniature hands, sparking frisson as users contemplated a socially sanctioned, though somehow still oddly illicit (and vaguely creepy) frottage culminating with a splash of cream. In the case of the “Tree of Life” pattern created by the Hobbs Brockunier Glass Co.
The Victorians’ flamboyantly flaunted their finger fetish in the glassware mass-produced for their newly fashioned and notoriously extravagant dining habits human hands-in myriad forms-became motifs that could teach, terrify, and/or titillate. Willson’s enthusiasm uncovers a cultural predilection for objectifying hands that had enjoyed popularity for several decades by the time his article appeared and while it remains fashionable even today to suggest otherwise, it proves quite difficult to deny that the Victorians were, in fact, not at all averse to getting handsy. Popular magazines at the time, The Strand included, also tried their hand at arguing for the appendage’s intrinsic significance with a two-part exposé by Beckles Willson that argues, “The hand, like the face, is indicative or representative of character.” The author follows up his self-assured assertion with what amounts, delightfully, to pin-up shots of famous hands accompanied by the author’s frequently laudatory evaluations of their respective merits. In fact, the fashion of the age -both popular and “scientific”-contended that cheirosophy or chiromancy-practices we now playfully, even derisively, call “palm reading”-could reveal an individual’s character and life trajectory. They represent idealizations and expectations of gender, worthy of immortalization in sculpture they serve as an index of social anxieties, synecdocichally drawing attention to unruly bodies and desires they emblematize socioeconomic status, showcasing the trappings of wealth and the hardship of poverty. The vignette’s curiosity reveals much about the Victorians’ conviction that hands contain meaning. And when’s the wedding to be?” she broke off, fixing her eyes on the soon-to-be groom’s face.
#Radium glass toothpick holder with bird skin
Her hand is large-it’s these modern sports that spread the joints-but the skin is white. “Mine was modeled in Rome by the great Ferrigiani. “But it’s the hand that sets off the ring, isn’t it, my dear Mr. As the young bride-to-be, May Welland, presents her left hand-recently sapphire ring-bejeweled by her fiancé, Newland Archer-to her socialite grandmother, the grandmother seems more interested in her appendages than the jewels. In its backward glance at the 1870s, Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence (1920) treats readers to a peculiar spectacle on the occasion of an engagement.
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