Sunday, November 26, 2006

Purple and hand painted but faded

I quickly loaded this image this past Sunday, but didn't have time then to write any commentary, as my wife and I were leaving on a road trip from which we only just now (Thursday afternoon) returned.

Since then, I came back and loaded a different version of the image, on which I applied less color balancing. I think the painting is slightly easier to see in this version.

This tie is somewhat similar to the much nicer specimen I posted last week, sharing a purple background, and hand painted image featuring leaves. However, the paint has faded over the years, and the image is barely discernible these days.

My best guess is that the leaves are grape leaves, as there appears to be a gnarly old grapevine stem extending below the small leaf at the lower left, and running up into the third leaf from the bottom.

So are the three globes supposed to be grapes? That is possible, I suppose, but they seem large in comparison to the leaves, and grapes usually appear in bunches, not singles. Not to mention that the two barefly visible leaves placed highest on the tie are a different shape altogether than those further down on the tie.

So the intended subject matter remains ambiguous, at least in my view. The tie preserves only a faded remnant of the glory it presumably once had. There is one label, sewed into the large end of the tie which, strangely, is sewed right across the middle of the label, making it difficult to read. I read it as follows:
Towncraft
Exclusive creation
by Rapsons
Rayon
Dry clean only

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