Brighter Fusion Blog

I bought this amazing copper picture on eBay a couple years ago for $75. I think that’s a lot of money for a decorative object with no practical purpose, but in this case, it was justified.

(See more detailed pics, including the artist’s initials. Don’t forget about the zoom function!)

This picture captivated me. One of the many things I like about it is that it’s not obvious where or when it was made. It looks like a pure fantasy figure, with no references back to any real fashions or other cultural cues. I couldn’t decide if it was arts and crafts, art nouveau, art deco, or hippie art. It carries elements of all of the above.

As I interpret it, she is simply a goddess, with no fears, responsibilities, or taboos to hold her down. She’s perfectly free and perfectly happy.

So I’ve been searching for more pictures like this one on eBay for a while, but it’s hard to find anything similar without some handle on it beyond “copper picture”.

There are Chinese noblewomen and emperors, Communist farmer/laborers, crude and slutty-looking native Hawaiian girls, and that little girl character with the big bonnet in profile, but mythical fantasy figures like this one — very, very rare.

I finally found something that could be from the same guild or artist, but it was astoundingly expensive. (Four figures!) Happily, that auction had a little more provenance info than the first one did. It was from the old USSR and the date was 1980.

The same image, different item, has come up at auction again. This one says it’s a souvenir from Armenia, made in the USSR, “article apthkyn C-221 aAp”.

It’s a young woman with billowy sleeves admiring a pomegranate fruit. I’m currently outbid at $56. It would be a nice companion for the first picture, but I don’t like it well enough to throw down more than $50 for it.

A Google search yesterday uncovered Deb Torby’s blog entry and a lovely copper picture from Tablisi, Georgia (another former republic of the USSR). I think the image has a lot of commonality with my goddess, but I doubt it’s by the same artist. This close-up is the only image she provided, so I can’t consider the picture as a whole.