Sunday, November 28, 2010

Great-grandmother's Monogrammed Haviland China

When we were growing up, this beautiful set of china was in my grandmother's china cabinet in Idaho. To us, it had just always been there. My mother told us about how my great-grandmother had hand painted the monograms, and taken a few pieces at a time to get them fired. My mom doesn't know if she used a stencil or just was very good at painting- it was just one of those things she didn't think much about at the time. She thinks it was painted in the 40's and my grandmother got the set when her mother- in-law died in the 50's. I always assumed (and didn't ask my grandmother) that the gold edge was also done by her. I googled and see that it came that way. This is another one of those things I wish I had asked my grandmother about when I had the chance. I also wonder if it was not that unusual to monogram your china at that time. Maybe her friends did this also. Maybe not a lot going on in post-war Kuna, Idaho at the time.

I have wanted to paint this for a long time, but never got to it. Also, my husband got me an awesome scanner recently and it makes very nice scans. With previous scanners, I always (very often) had trouble getting a nice white background without grey tints. This scanner (Epson Artisan 10000) is worth every penny so far even though I kept telling him I didn't need it. When he's right, he's right.
Thanks for looking!
Sheryl





7 comments:

  1. Wow, how wonderful! Sheryl seems real!!
    Beautiful!!!

    Ciao!!!

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  2. This is lovely! How wonderful to have this tie to your great grandmother.

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  3. Thank you, Candy! I really do love all the old passed-down treasures!

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  4. Beautiful work, Sheryl.
    I have a teacup from someone treasured and passed.. amazing how much emotion can be felt through them - and you have captured that in your painting. xx

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  5. That's a beautiful piece of china... and so is your painting!

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Thank you so much for your comments- I love to hear what you think!