Four Little Folk Birds portsmouth history ) Such an elegant form

) Such an elegant form suggesting a bird through the sparest of means (it feels to me quite reminiscent of early Native American bird stones)

beautifully graphic just hanging down from the hook on the wall in a straight line

The back is papered over but it appears to me to be painted (in oil) on a thin wooden panel

including 16 triangular prisms

an ancestor of the Chancellor to Queen Elizabeth I

Four Little Folk Birds portsmouth history ) Such an elegant formThese remind me a good bit of antique German Erzgebirge animals, but I believe they are their own special things, and just right as a flock of four, carved of wood, with great much weathered dark green painted surfaces. I especially love the one with the very crooked beak, formed of a separate bit of wood, which I think lends a greater sense of drama to the group and highlights the fact that each bird has a distinctly different shape. (And aside from