Habetrot

The Rocks at Kilkee

This dramatic scene is an 1875 engraving of the rocky cliffs near Kilkee, County Clare, Ireland.

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Sheep sure do like to live dangerously.

Delft Shepherd

This Delft tile showing a shepherd and his sheep dates from about 1675.

Delft tiles of this sort originated in Holland in the 1600's and often depicted people going about their everyday tasks.

 
This tile from about 1725 shows what our shepherd's farm house might have looked like.

The tiles also often showed landscapes and cityscapes.  For some examples of various motifs, look here.

      

The tiles were used in large groupings rather than individually.  You can get an idea of what the interior of our shepherd's home might have looked like from this postcard from the 1930's.

Who Knew? 2

Did you know that lambs can fly?

I had no idea.  I always thought they were land bound.  But look at the little girl go!

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Edited to add:  For those of you concerned about the flying lamb kabob, I give you this:

Better?

These lively little Icelandic lambs live at Jager Farm in Massachusetts in the US and are playing king of the rock, a popular game amongst lambs everywhere.

 

 

For more photos of cute spring lambs and for some lovely farm photos, go take a look here and at the several linked lamb photo pages.

Photos by Barbara Webb

               

 

Who Knew?

I had no idea that Cupid is a spinner.

Millet - The Knitting Lesson

Jean-François Millet  
(French, 1814-1875)  (more).

Millet is a particular favorite of mine, as readers of these pages have seen.  He painted regular people going about their lives doing regular things in rural 19th-century France--spinners, shepherds, spindling shepherdesses, among many other subjects.

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He often used scenes from his own life, peopled by his own family.  One of my favorite themes is my topic today--The Knitting Lesson.

Millet was not alone in painting this tender scene.  Other artists have also done so from time to time.  See my previous entry here.

Millet painted and sketched this scene many times, and here are a sketch and three painting, all variations on the theme.

In each the tenderness and love of the mother for the daughter, as well as of the painter for the mother and daughter, is palpable. 

The large outline of each is the same, but the small details vary from one to the next--the dress, the amount of light coming in the window, whether the mother has work on her lap.  Sometimes there is a kitten in the background; the items on the linen press change from one image to the next

"Already a considerable length of stocking has been made, but this is a place where close attention is needed. Perhaps it is time to begin shaping the heel. The mother's work is left altogether for a moment. Putting her arm about the child's shoulder, she takes the two little hands in hers, and guides the fingers holding the needles."

From a book published in 1900, Jean François Millet, by Estelle M. Hurll, available here from Project Gutenberg.  On that page you will also find yet another variation on the scene.

 

This is Millet's painting, "End of the Hamlet of Gruchy," giving a glimpse of more of Millet's everyday life.

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