Pregled posta

Marketing

Bronze, Early Augustan, Allegedly from Asia Minor
H. 29 cm.

Hollow-cast by the lost wax method in five parts [1] joined to each other by fusion-welding, extensively cold-worked: patched, chased, burnished and polished. The eyes silver, the inlaid irises missing. Lips, nipples and button on pommel of sword inlaid in copper.

Condition: patina light olive green to blackish green, copper-coloured metal showing through in places, specks of light green cuprous chloride here and there, the odd spot of cuprite, traces of light-coloured earth incrustation; the surface, originally very smooth, in places scraped with superficial spots of pitting, a few pin-points - casting faults at join of arms and upper left thigh to body.

Missing the sword blade, the scabbard, the base on which he would have been seated, and at the join with the head a rectangular patch on the upper left side of his neck and a small one on the nape, at the hairline.

Ajax at daybreak comes to his senses. The instant when dawns upon him the terrible realization that only death can cleanse his honour. This is the Sophoclean version of Ajax [2].

Meditating his suicide, brooding and despondent, he would have been seated on a rock [3] probably cast at one with a small section of landscape figuring slain cattle and sheep. In his upraised right hand he held the unsheathed sword - maybe Hector's which he exchanged for his belt - of which the blade might have been of copper or silver, and in his left the scabbard.

Until recently [4], this was the only known representation of him in the round. The best previous comparison for the subject was a bronze patera in Lyon [5] with, on its omphalos in low relief, the same representation at this very pathetic moment of the drama. His right hand also in the same position holds the sword and he is seated on a draped rock with dead cattle at his feet; across his upper left thigh rests a scabbard and over his left forearm is the strap that would have held it. The latter an added indication, if one be needed, that the representation is Ajax, son of Telamon, King of Salamis; for Telamon means baldric in Greek. The Lyon patera has been dated by its handle and decorative elements to the 1st century A.D. Another revealing comparison is a terracotta lamp [6] reputedly from Naples in Vienna. The scene is almost identical but in addition there is a tree in the background. There are numerous gems illustrating the scene, among which one in Munich [7] shows a very similar representation.

In archaic times Ajax would have been shown in action, or dead. Only the great Black-Figure artist Exekias shows him contemplating suicide, and here, as with all the comparisons mentioned, we have a psychological study where the moment represented is before the action. Why a representation of Ajax at this time? B. Shefton [8] says: "It is very well possible that a Classical prototype, perhaps under the influence of Sophocles' play is indeed behind this particular iconography. It is then, however, puzzling that all its surviving precipitation should come at the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire". At first the author in his talk at Stara Zagora thought that this work harked back to a Classical original of the late 4th century, maybe a work by Lysippos, or in his tradition, though at his Getty conference he rhetorically asked "What is the date and what is the purpose or function of this admirable statuette? On account of its close parallel to the Belvedere Torso, its best comparison, its classical spirit and yet its Roman characteristics (such as the treatment of certain details, the left thigh, the shoulder-blades, the head and hair very well modelled and chiselled, the furrowed brow, also the stressed musculature, almost exaggerated, and the spinal groove, his beard and hair somewhat similar to the Boxer), we perceive between its classical inspiration and its execution reminiscences of baroque Pergamene art with eastern influences expressed in the muscles and thorax. I feel that we should place him in the second half of the 1st century B.C. and probably in the early reign of Augustus." The 1st century B.C. is a very eclectic period, but in spirit it is classicizing: Greek artists worked for Augustus. Ajax' expression bears strong resemblance with cameos of his time. J. Marszal, on a visit, pointed out that a detail such as his very severe eyebrows are characteristic of the Augustan Age. The subject of Ajax in a similar position was represented on a painting by Timomachos, one of the two paintings [9] which Julius Caesar brought back to Rome from Kyzikos for the temple of Venus Victrix. Whatever the date of the painting, whether 3rd or 1st century B.C., it reveals, with other examples such as the scene representing Ajax on the Tabula Iliaca Capitolina of the last quarter of the 1st century B.C., that Romans of the period were keenly aware of the subject.

The Torso Belvedere, contemporary in date, third q

Location: The Merrythought Company Limited, Dale End, The Wharfage,
Ironbridge, Shropshire, England, UK
Date of Photograph: am 16 November 2007
OS Grid Reference: SJ666037
Co-ordinates: 52:37:48N 2:29:38W
Elevation: 42.7 meters

Coalbrookdale is usually thought of as the Birthplace of Industry, but here it shows an industry habitually associated with the nonage of man.

The Ironbridge Gorge is crowded with industrial monuments that in the eighteenth century based themselves on the valley’s then seemingly infinite resources of coal, ironstone, fireclay and bitumen. It is a United Nations World Heritage Site.

In 1894 the German toymaker Sussenguth Brothers presented a stuffed toy bear in their catalog. Three years later, their competitor Steiff showed its “Roly-Poly” bear at a Leipzig trade fair, and by 1899 Margarete Steiff had patents for twenty-three of her soft toy designs including several ursine themes.

In 1902 American satirist Clifford Berryman published, in the Washington Post, a cartoon of noted huntsman Theodore Roosevelt refusing to shoot a bear cub. The cartoon was syndicated worldwide and the US Commander-in-Chief was indelibly associated with a little bear. The “Teddy Bear” was born, and by November Morris Michtom had sold the first in his Brooklyn shop.

The next year Steiff exported three thousand 55PB bears to the USA, and they and their American competitors dominated the craze before The Great War.

In 1919, the Armistice brought slump to the enormous and workmanlike British textile industry. Notwithstanding, WG Holmes and GH Laxton opened a small mill in Yorkshire to spin imported mohair. They purchased Dyson Hall and Company Limited of Huddersfield and expanded vertically into weaving mohair plush.

To provide an outlet for their mohair plush they made a further vertical move into soft toy manufacture, and in September 1930 teddy bear maker Merrythought Limited was founded. Holmes and Laxton set it up in a temporary factory with a workforce of twenty, including managers enticed from Birmingham rival Chad Valley.

In February 1931 Merrythought leased an 1898 foundry complex from The Coalbrookdale Company. This premises was of course at Ironbridge, to which Merrythought moved.

Another key worker from Chad Valley was the deaf mute artist Florence Attwood who presented thirty-two toy designs for the 1930 season, and the first teddy in 1931. She prepared a range of soft toy designs for Merrythought until her death in 1949.

By 1932, over two hundred were employed at Dale End and the works was electrified. After three more years Merrythought was the largest soft toy maker in the United Kingdom.

In September 1939 the Merrythought factory was requisitioned by The Admiralty. Teddy production was banished to extempore works in nearby Wellington. The Dale End factory’s situation in a wooded defile made aerial bombing difficult. The Ironbridge complex was given over to secret map-making and plywood storage. Later, The Royal Navy used Dale End to make uniform badges, helmet linings, gas mask bags, specialist ammunition bags and a diversity of war goods made form gabardine and velour.

In March 1946, toy production resumed at the Dale End site. Nylon and Draylon entered the fabric and new machinery was installed. In 1955 a compressed-air actuated stuffing machine was imported from the US and worked in parallel with hand stuffing. During this era of post-war expansion the foundry buildings were renovated and design and commercial offices, as well as a showroom, erected on site. The next year Merrythought purchased the freehold from The Coalbrookdale Company.

Throughout the Sixties and Seventies, however, British consumer manufactures suffered a dramatic decline in the face of foreign competition. Many such industries were based upon a pre-scientific handicraft tradition and were aimed squarely at achieving a product life of decades, if not centuries, in a market where unit cost was no desideratum.

In its latter years, Merrythought boasted that it was the last British toymaker and that no two of its examples were identical. An American or Japanese maker would of course have regarded the latter diagnostic of process misconfiguration. In 1988 Merrythought opened a teddy bear retail outlet in an old shop premises beside the works gate.

On 27th November 2006 Merrythought should have been at its busiest point of the year. Fifty-six year old engineer Oliver Holmes, grandson of the founder, called his forty-eight remaining workers together. He thanked his staff for their talent and loyalty. He remarked that it was impossible for Merrythought to compete with foreign goods made at “significantly lower” manufacturing and overhead costs. The workers were told that they would not get their redundancy money until after Christmas.

The next day television news reported the closure and interviewed some of Merrythought’s tearful former employees before the factory gate. Later a journalist explained that it cost i