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#6610 - c. 1921
DE MARINIS, Paris
Black Satin Cloche with Gold Metallic Embroidery and Jet
Beads of Oriental Design! NOTE: Said to be Fanny
Brice's Hat!
This hat
is said to have belonged to Fanny Brice. I don't have written documentation for this.
However... here's the connection. The hat came to me from a
gentleman with a museum collection. He acquired the hat from a man
who got the hat from a woman who had been Miss Brice's dresser, and who
had kept the hat as a memento. Additionally in researching De Marinis, the previous owner of this hat found several picture
layouts in Vogue and Vanity Fair with Miss Brice modeling their
hats. Even without the history, it's a quite extraordinary hat of
the era! An exquisite dinner cloche of black satin embroidered in
black and gold and outlined in jet beads, in the so-called
distinctive and elaborate "Blue Willow" pattern... most
often seen on porcelain and china. The Legend of Blue Willow? Once there lived a very wealthy mandarin who had a beautiful
daughter named Hong Shee, who fell in love with her fatherīs
secretary, a man named Chang. To keep them apart, the father
imprisoned his daughter in the palace. One day she escaped, and the
two lovers raced over the bridge, eluding their pursuers, to a
waiting boat and sailed away. A storm developed; the boat
foundered; and the couple were lost at sea. It is said that two
love birds appeared immediately thereafter - and as spirits, Hong
Shee and Chang and live on to this day. Blue Willow was first
offered almost two hundred years ago by a famous English maker of
fine china. Blue Willow is still the most popular pattern to ever
appear on dinnerware. The cloche is in
Excellent condition. SOLD
- but on display in Museum Category for Research/Display
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