Aren’t the colours delicious ?

Breakfast set includes 4 cups and saucers, 4 cereal bowls and 4 side plates.

Mix and match for fun ! All in perfect condition.

$145 set

Delightful Grindley (England) breakfast set:
4 cups and saucers, 4 cereal bowls and 4 side plates.
(SOLD)

Jane and I have two interesting metal toys in the store this week.

First of all, a model train made by Arnold in the 1940s in US occupied Germany. The lithography is beautiful on it. It is a wind-up toy. Our piece is missing its key and the one carriage is missing its front wheels; there is also a roof missing on the shed on one end. Otherwise, it is still in beautiful condition.

The other toy is a Japanese made (Yonezawa Company) BK027 Beoing B-50 bomber. It is all original by missing the front wheel. Great colour and excellent condition.

Vintage Yonezawa BK027 metal model airplane. 1940s. Wing span is 15 inches.Excellent condition. All original. Missing front wheel. $175

Vintage Arnold model train station.
Includes both cars (one missing two wheels), wind-up key is also missing.
Still in beautiful shape. 1940s $75

This really isn’t about our store, but it is nearly right next door and the old Post Office is a very special building in Annapolis Royal.

This week it is getting a new roof! What has been fascinating this morning is watching the “singing scaffolders” put up their system to allow the roofers to do their job.

Dean Pierce of East Coast Scaffolding says their system is unique in North America! They are the only company to have imported this system from Europe that can go to any height and be any shape.

Great for this kind of job.

And both Dean and Vince sing and I was serenaded by “Ticket to Ride” and ‘It’s a Wonderful World”!

The Old Post Office is looking for a new owner and you can check out the listing on Tradewinds.

The scaffolding on the Old Post Office this morning.

The new black roof tiles with Dean and Vince and the scaffolding to the sky !

Need scaffolding ? Call Dean Pearce at East cost Scaffolding. inquiries@eastcoastscaffolding.com

Jane and I love it when we have a story to tell about an acquisition!

This stunning floral is by the Scottish artist Mary Stewart Gibson who lived and painted in Paris in the Left Bank from 1923 until the mid 70s.

This original painting is signed but not dated.

What we find so fascinating is the story of the “atelier” where she bought her paints and canvasses – atelier Lefebvre-Foinet. This canvas is stamped with the workshop’s mark and the frame has a plaque on the back.

This atelier was famous for furnishing supplies to many well-known artists in Paris after the First World War including: Alberto Giacometti, Max Ernst, Matisse and Jean-Paul Riopelle.

The Lefebvre-Foinet atelier was run by five generations for over one hundred years! Many artists gifted paintings to the Lefebvre-Foinet family and they amassed a collection of over 140 works (worth between $6 and $9 million dollars) which were eventually sold at a Christie’s auction in 2009.

Mary Stewart Gibson
Still Life painted in Paris.
Likely 1930s. $350

In the store now are a fab pair of 1960s Herman Miller Armshell chairs designed by Charles and Ray Eames.

They retain their original upholstery in magenta hopsack by Alexander Girard.

These shells bear the Herman  Miller mark and the “crescent moon” mark of Milacron Milling and Machine Company who produced the fibreglass shells.

Our pair of chairs still have their original plastic foot caps.

They are in excellent vintage condition with just a couple of small tears in the upholstery of one chair at the seam and a few slight stains.

Comfy and simply fabulous!

Herman Miller Armshell chair.
SOLD

You know that Jane and I love the vintage Paint-by-Numbers and enjoy selling them in our shop.

But did you know there is a Paint-by-Number Museum on line where you can research and find the ones in your collection ?

When we get a “new to us” PBN, we always go to : paintbynumbermuseum.com and use their search engine to find the one we are researching. There we can find the title of our PBN, the date the kit was manufactured and the number of oil colours used in the kit.

PBNs were the democratization of art in the 50s. Anyone could paint a masterpiece. People had more leisure time for a creative experience

According to the article “Every Man a Rembrandt”, the Palmer Paint Company and artist Dan Robbins conceived the idea and began distributing the kits in 1951. By 1954, Palmer had sold over 12 million kits under the Craft Master label.

Critics pooh-poohed the mindless conformity of the kits calling those who used them “number filler inners”.  One critic said that more “number pictures” hung in American homes than original works of art. But the public – young and old -loved them. Retailers welcomed the kits as transition items and estimated that as many as 10% of those doing PBNs went on to purchase traditional art supplies. And many had their PBNs professionally framed – creating a boom in that business.

And many “artists” made the PBNs their own by eliminating a detail here and there or changing a colour, thereby learning something of art in the process.

One amateur artist wrote in 2001 that “paint by number introduced me to the smell and feel of “real” paint that still thrills me today”

You can read about other remembrances at: http://americanhistory.si.edu/paint/reminiscence.html

Now isn’t that fascinating?

Here are the PBNs we have in the store right now.

“The birches” PBN from 1960. 40 oil colours
$35

Lovely large still life Paint-by-Number from 1973. 40 oil colours. $55

“Autumn Haze”. 1969. 22 oil colours.
We have the pair. $40/pair

“Tranquil reflections” 1969. 40 oil colours. $60

Our favourite!
“Age of innocence” by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Masterpiece series.
Signed by the “artist”. M. Butler 1969. $75

We have a very lovely pale blue vanity chair in the store this week.

The chair was beautifully made by the Thornton-Smith Company of Toronto in 1940.

Mabel Cawthra Adamson, who was the first president of the Society of Arts and Crafts in Canada in 1903, founded the Canadian franchise of the Thornton-Smith Compnay, a British interior design firm, in 1905.

This company was a legendary influence on Toronto interiors. They sold custom furniture, fabrics, rugs and drapery. They decorated  the Royal Alexander Theatre, parts of Massey Hall and even the Senate Chamber in Ottawa.

We are pleased to be able to offer this delightful swivelling vanity chair with such an interesting history attached.

$140

Beautiful Thornton-Smith vanity chair from 1940. Excellent condition. It swivels! (SOLD)

I very recently purchased four vintage metal bridge chairs at a sale. They are really strong, fold-up chairs in a black finish and with their original green vinyl seats.

Luckily, they still have their original labels on the back reading “Rousseau Metal, St-Jean Port Joli, Quebec, Canada”.

So, I did a little research – as per usual – and found out that the company still exists. I wrote to them on the off chance they might respond.

Well, Direct Marketing Agent Rebecca Dube of Rousseau Metal very kindly answered me back the very next day with all kinds of interesting information and photos on our chairs.

Turns out they were made in the 1950s and were part of bridge sets produced by this company which was founded in 1950 with three employees in a 15,000 sq. ft factory! They manufactured a variety of products including all types of multi-purpose cabinets, some for Canada Post, mailboxes, electric meter boxes and… bridge tables and chairs!

Rousseau Metal now uses cutting-edge technology in their 183,000 sq. ft facility in the same place supplying companies with”workspace and organizations solutions for almost 60 years”.

Isn’t that fascinating?

Please have a look at the photos that Rebecca kindly sent!

We have actually decided to keep the chairs and not sell them in the store. We are going to use them for our musicians who come and play here every First Friday – they are really comfortable!

Many thanks to Rebecca for the information and permission to use her archival photos.

Rousseau Metal label

One of our Rousseau metal chairs.

Original Rousseau Metal bridge table and chair set from the 1950s.

Freshly painted bridge chairs out of the oven.

A Carlo of Hollywood original oil painting on masonite!

Artcraft was Carlo’s studio and was located in the Lincoln Heights Station area near Los Angeles. He painted in the mid 50s.

Apparently his art was sold in department stores and was bought by contractors as gifts for new homeowners!

Rumour on the net says he may have designed sets on the I Love Lucy show.

When I first saw our painting, I thought it was of a golf course! However, it is actually a lake with a couple of boats and a sand bar. The colours are fabulous!

Carlo of Hollywood oil on masonite painting. SOLD

Artcraft label

My husband Peter has always been a geography nut!  As a 10 year old in 1952, he saved up his allowance and somehow persuaded the powers-that-be at the Annapolis Royal Regional Academy to procure for him these two school maps, made by Copp Clark and given to schools by the Neilson Company on the condition that the lettering on the map would not be altered in any way.

He was lucky and secured both maps…the one of Canada (which hasn’t changed much) and the one of the world, which has changed considerably since that time.  These maps hung in his bedroom until he went away to university, and have been rolled up for 52 years.  They are in beautiful condition, with bright lithography and strong paper!  Wonderfully decorative and hard to find, they are offered at $110 each.

1950s Neilson’s Chocolates Map of Canada. $110

Neilson’s World Map. $110