Betty Lynn and I have just returned from a trip which gave me the opportunity to explore for antiques along U.S. Route 1 in Maine from York to Nobleboro. I made a number of acquisitions on this trip which I intend to share with you in the weeks to come, but for today, I am going to focus on a spectacular find from the Nobleboro Antique Exchange.
It was here that I found a Victoria Carlsbad Austria centrepiece which stands about 14 inches tall. It features a transfer design which I had already had on two other pieces in our collection. One a six inch tall vase with the same decorative pattern and colours around the transfer, and the other, a unique charger plate. Why unique? An artist took two stock classical motif transfers, the design I had on the first two items, and another transfer design, and integrated them together on the charger with a freehand painted landscape.
The centrepiece from Nobleboro is a great addition to our collection. Although I am no expert, I would describe the urn shape as Chinese inspired although the transfer on it is of a Classical Greek motif and the ornamentation in forest green, red, and gold would appear to be popular in the late 19th century. Yet somehow, the effect is one of symetry. The smaller vase is painted in the same style with the same transfer as the centrepiece, but, as you can see, the vase itself is completely different. The charger plate is strikingly simple in contrast.
