More years ago than I care to remember, I was fortunate to come into possession of a work of art which I love and dearly adore. I'm not normally a fan of the art of marquetry. I've seen too many poorly-executed scenes of ships at sea rendered in blocks of plywood to lead me to think otherwise. But this one's different, made up of carefully razored strips of birch tree.
I know little of its provenance, other than that it was created in Russia (possibly in Kostroma) in 1971.
Now and again, I've idly Googled to see if I could find something similar, in an attempt to find out more about the individual who created it, but never with any great success.
As usual, it was young Jasper Blunt who came up with the bright idea of 'harnessing the power of the internet'.
"Pa," he said, "why don't you post a photo of the picture on your blog? Someone, somewhere, is bound to recognise it!"
Well, it's an idea...
Here, then, is the mystery Russian lady, sculpted in birch bark.
Jasper tells me that, if every reader of this post were to include a link to it in their blog (perhaps even with a copy of the photo) with a plea to their readers to help solve the mystery, then it would be a matter of no time before we knew a little more about it.
Apparently, it's all something to do with 'incremental progression'.
I can't pretend I know what he's on about, except that I think he means it would bring fresh pairs of eyes to the problem.
It's got to be worth a go, I suppose.
So, can you - or your own blog readers - tell me anything more about this picture? Perhaps if you asked them to post a link on their own blog, the process of solving the mystery would be that much quicker?
Bill's waiting...
