Old Hand-sewn Piecework Leather and Oil Cloth Brown Ball Weston toy company is lacquered papier mache

is lacquered papier mache

or forget-me-nots

I like to imagine these were the names of crushes or prospective future wives

It looks to the me like the hull of an upside down boat that these two are sitting upon

but surely this bowl was once a basket--there is a one remaining piece of the handle on the interior of one side

Old Hand-sewn Piecework Leather and Oil Cloth Brown Ball Weston toy company is lacquered papier macheI'm drawn like a magnet to antique hand sewn toy balls like this; there's something about the piecework required to yield a (nearly) round ball that feels like quite a feat of construction to me, with the result like a three dimensional quilt. And the variety of browns (seems to me a combination of leathers and oil cloth) on this makes it seem as if in conversation with everything from old leather medicine balls to geometrical solids a perfect tactile