Henri Gillet used Art Nouveau designs to make lithographs, which were used as wallpaper from 1900 to the 1920′s. On one of them, he designed a horn comb. If it were ever made, I’d imagine the flurry of leaves to be plique-a-jour enamel. This lithograph is part of the Album de la Décoration, edited by A. Calavas and printed in Paris c. 1900.
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Design Motifs of the Decorative Twenties in Color by Henri Gillet
A colleague of Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) spent a decade writing The Malay Archipelago. The Land of the Orang-utang and the Bird of Paradise.
Europeans were mesmerized by the red bird of paradise, as it reminded them of a lost Eden. Wallace wrote extensively on how he used native contacts to kill them, or rather to get specimens for study.
Unlike the kingfisher, Paradisaeas are not extinct. Here is a rubra and a minor in all their glory.
Tribal leaders feathered this ceremonial headdress from the wings of the red bird of paradise, cockatoo, parrot, and pigeon. It was acquired by the National Museum in Papua, New Guinea in 1906.
For parents who might show this blog to their children, they can reassure them that Kevin from the movie, “Up” was a Kelenken, an extinct prehistoric bird, who lived 15 million years ago in Argentina. No one made headdresses out of Kevin, so we can all breathe a sigh of relief. :-)
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Earlier Meiji kogai sticks were long and flat, with gold maki-e decorations on each edge. Edo kogai sticks were shorter and thicker, carved just at the top. These Meiji tortoiseshell sticks come from The Creative Museum, while the Edo lacquer sticks reside in The Miriam Slater Collection.
This extraordinary early Meiji kogai stick belongs to the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, MD. It is gold, split like two sticks of bamboo, and depicts a sparrow flying through the trees.
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Chinese and Japanese Hair Ornaments by The Creative Museum
The Combs and Ornamental Hairpins in the Collection of Miss Chiyo Okazaki
Following the love of clouds and wind in Japanese combs, August Bonaz put a French Art Deco twist to this design, where his clouds have small tines to symbolize rain. Bonaz was trying to tell us that “Every cloud has a silver lining.” It is elegantly curved, signed, and in splendid condition. A seller on Ebay France has listed it for € 450, or $622 as a Buy It Now. What is even better is that the auction mentions The Creative Museum’s Bonaz Collection as part of the comb’s provenance.
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The Old Kingdom refers to Egypt, 3000 BC, when the country reached its first peak of civilization. However, historians date this comb to a few hundred years before that, and shows Egyptian art before recorded history.
It is an ivory ceremonial funeral comb of an elite person. Horizontal rows of animal figures suggest a style that became familiar in later Egyptian art. The choice of animals was not random, since elephants, snakes, birds, a giraffe, hyenas, and cattle appear on other carved ivory objects. The elephants standing on snakes may come from African creation myths, in which these two animals figure prominently. The comb resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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A tortoiseshell comb with an 18K gold bar decorated with rose- and white-gold sculpted flowers is selling for $1650 on Ebay France. It comes in its original box, with the maker’s name. EK: Erik August Kollin, Fabergé’s Finnish head workmaster until 1886. The first Faberge egg is also attributed to him.
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This ivory comb was made in North India, as the Mughal Empire reached the height of power in the 17th and 18th Centuries. The dynasty was founded in 1526 by Persian Sunni Muslims of Turkish-Mongol descent, hence the name, Mughal. The empire included Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and North India, among other lands. Condition: Perfect. Sale price: 15,000 GBP on May 31, 2011.
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Sotheby’s sold this Victorian diamond tiara hinged with 18K gold to a blonde tortoiseshell comb for $7500 on Sept. 20, 2011.
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Victorian Jewelry: Unexplored Treasures
Jewellery in the Age of Queen Victoria: A Mirror to the World
Today, The Creative Museum walked in the front door of Le Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Angoulême, France.
Thirty combs from the family, who devoted 30 years to comb scholarship, were combined with headdresses from the Antoine de Galbert collection. The exhibition was called EN TÊTE À TÊTE.
It divided combs and headdresses to show four cultural themes: birth and initiation, marriage, social status, and death.
The Creative Museum made a film tour of the exhibition. Look at how many people came to learn.
The galleries were packed.
Thank you, Alain, Catherine, and Joel for making a “dent in the universe” and bringing hair combs to the environment in which they belong.
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The catalog from this exhibition, which will be available in the museum shop soon. Or, you can contact the museum and request a copy.
According to our author-scholar Kajetan Fiedorowicz, the best Maori comb ever offered on Ebay sold on Oct. 9, 2011, for $2,576.00. It was a 17th-Century whale-bone Heru comb. The dealer listed it as “Old African? Large “oxbone” comb; elegant!” with a starting price of $9.95.
In Maori culture, men wore their hair long with a top knot, and women wore their hair short. A Heru is the ornament, stuck in the top knot, which decorated the heads of top-ranking men. They were a symbol of mana, or status and prestige. Many of the combs had faces, which were decorated with paua-shell eyes. (Search Patoromu Tamatea on the blog.)
In 1200, Rua-tupu, the second son of Chief Uenuku, wore a Heru without permission. These combs could only be worn by the elder sons. His father belittled him. To get revenge, Rua-tupu took children of tribal nobelmen into his canoe, traveled far into the ocean, and sank the boat. It is an incident in Maori history called “Te huri-pure-i-ata.” His older brother, Kahutia-te-rangi survived with the help of a whale, and his name changed to Paikea, or whale rider. The myth says Paikea had the help of the goddess Moa-kura-manu.
What I think this comb depicts is Kahutia-te-rangi (the small carving on the left) riding the whale. Think of the age, look at the condition, marvel at the orange patina on the whale bone. Absorb the simplicity of design, which expresses the profound mythology of Maori culture. The comb is a revelation. Kajetan hoped it went to a museum where it belongs. We will never know.
However, we have the picture. Our community will recognize this comb’s significance, history, and have yet another example that design reaches its greatest heights in simple forms.
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