A Familiar Face...in Vienna

Making my rounds yesterday  of some favorite blogs, I was surprised to see a familiar face at Merisi's Vienna for Beginners. Hop over and take a look. She's in the first photo of Merisi's post and at the top of the metal gate in the second. 

A very familiar face. I have what could be her sister hanging above the entry to our dining room.

Over fifty years ago, she was dusty and forlorn in the corner of a tiny antique/cabinet maker's shop in Tampa. (It had become time to 'do something' about my room as I made the transition from child to teen and my mother was attempting to guide me on the path of interior decoration.)

I saw this carved head hanging on the wall and was a goner. I'd always wanted a ship's figurehead, ever since reading Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Wooden Lady. 

  
This wasn't a figurehead but it was as close as I was likely to get. I named her Magdalene (pronounced mawdlin) and she's been with me ever since.

The cabinet maker who sold her to me said that she was likely an apprentice piece -- something made by an apprentice woodworker in order to move up to the next rung on the way to becoming a master.


Quite probably faces of this sort were something of a standard in the decorative arts of a certain era.  Still, it's fun to feel she has a sister in Vienna.