Alice? It figures!

Clockwise, from top left: Dodo, Alice, Humpty Dumpty, Gryphon, Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter, Mock Turtle, White Rabbit.

I ran across eighteen Kaiyodo "Alice's Adventures in Figureland" for display in the school library last night. I collect dodos - and have always coveted my late uncle's larger Royal Doulton ceramic dodo, based on John Tenniel's design, from the Lewis Carroll novels ("Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the looking glass"). This little dodo was hanging on the front of a peg in a favourite toy shop - and I loved the quality of these irresistible little figures. I accidentally picked the right Alice (out of four possibles), too; when I got her home, I realised she came with half of Humpty's wall. Today, I glued them all to a wooden base and grassed it with model railway "grass".

More "Alice" stuff on my other blog can be found HERE! (Scroll down)

I drew this dodo in 1981:



I bought this beautiful ceramic one, by a local artist, in the early 80s:



Papo brand plastic dodo figurine:



And here's my holy grail, from Royal Doulton:



But look, there's more!

Salting the herd

I bought my mother this funky cow family pepper, salt, milk jug and sugar bowl set in about 1975, and they survived three house moves, including interstate. When she returned to New South Wales last year, one of the calves had gone rogue and has never been seen again. I took a digital photo on a recent visit so I could more accurately search for a replacement. I was on a mission! And I can now report success.

After several close calls, I recently found a single second hand calf (pointing in the correct direction) on "Buy it now" eBay. There are so many variations on this style of ceramics, seemingly dating from the 50s, 60s and 70s, with very few having the bull as part of the set (the bull sugar bowl is what appealed to me so much in 1975), and many sets have dark purplish colours under the glaze, or any variety of painted details on the bells, collars and hooves. Similarly, prices for sets vary from a few dollars for lone pieces from broken sets to very large amounts if the sellers consider them to be "rare".

The horns and cow bell on this one were pale yellow (notice I've just enameled one horn metallic gold in the photo, as a test), and the blushes of hair colour are mauve on the replacement, rather than light brown - the brown-tinted sets do seem to be the rarity in my several months of looking, but adoptive bovine parents can't be fussy.

On the positive side, this little guy came in a random set of five single ceramic shakers, but still a good deal for the one calf I needed. I now have shakers resembling a red parrot, a Thanksgiving turkey, a weird duck and a dodo-like bird all looking for a shelf to warm.

Classic!

"Taking Things Easy" and "The Old Balloon Seller": two beautiful, classic Royal Doulton figurines that have just made their way to my place via a deceased estate.

Something a little fishy

This tiny ceramic fisherman, sitting on my knee during the trip home from the city - is destined to sit under my artificial bonsai tree at work: