Let Us Open His Basket (and Take and Hide What We Find) ...Metaphoric for the Moment .c. 1840s Staffordshire Child's Plate

Regular price $45.00

A number of 19th century British transfer decorated pieces made for children today, which I really just can't get enough of--but each of which I choose for their own specific reasons. Many of these represented games and various sorts of play, sometimes strange or curious ones, but this one struck me as especially timely in a critique of the present moment sort of way: a group of young men (looking quite like commanders--or oligarchs--in training) plotting to steal and hide the contents of the basket of another while he is sleeping. "Just for fun." Hmm....one worries this lesson was too well absorbed! Of course play is just a manifestation/crystallization of real world tendencies and dynamics. Rather poignant I think. 

 7" d". Scatted stains and one rim chip as documented.