Swag from the Dayton Art Institute
And a piece from my personal collection.
As mentioned before, the museum’s gift shop was smallish. However, I did find two things to purchase. The first is a book about Anna Pavlova for 5 bucks. It’s actually a big massive book so the price was a steal. I’d never heard of her, but looking though the book made me very interested in learning about her. The book itself is filled with fantastic photography throughout Anna’s life. She was a very famous Russian prima ballerina. Another interesting fact is the dessert Pavlova is named after her. She died at the age 49 as she refused to undergo a lifesaving surgery that would have left her unable to dance. She was quoted as saying “If I can’t dance, I’d rather be dead”. Her last words were “Get my Swan costume ready”. She was placed in her coffin with a sprig of lilac which reminded me of the chat I had with Bill from Sunny Fields Botanical Park. He had mentioned that Russians loved lilacs.
Here is a video of her performing The Swan. I am terrible at interpreting dance, but apparently this is a fantastic Dying Swan.
Here are some photos from the book. The author said there were thousands of photographs of Pavlova many of which he restored as they were 60 years old.
I try to purchase jewelry from art museums as they usually have quality made items.
In my last post I showed two bowls and a vase by René Lalique, a French jeweler and glass designer. The name sounded familiar to me. Well, it turns out I have two pieces from him. One a beautiful vase that I got at an estate sale and a perfume bottle I got some another estate sale (the best place to buy goods). Both are a stunning opalescent color that’s hard to capture on my camera.
