It’s time for another treasure that I have brought to the
West Coast. This is the type of
thing my father paid a dollar or two for around 1970. I remember it hanging on the wall back in our Victorian in
Buffalo. It moved with us to the
house on Cape Cod. There the
elements were tough on it. Even
indoors, when you have an old house between a salt marsh and the beach,
everything is damp. Unfortunately
this piece has some serious foxing issues.
It’s pencil and gouache on paper. I suspect it may have been cut from a sketchbook. The size is 7” wide x 14” high. Signed
in pencil on the front. There are
framing instructions on the back in pencil in the artist’s hand. Who was Violet Gene Schwender who
signed this rather lovely fashion rendering from the 1920’s?
Sometimes a bit of internet searching makes one feel merely
frustrated and teased. I want to
see more of her images like this one. I did learn that Violet Schwender was the
artist’s maiden name. Violet Gordon
lived a long life, passing away in 2005 at the age of 1998. To think, if I had looked into this a
bit sooner, I could have asked the artist herself.
I learned she was well known in Buffalo as a local artist,
but Violet Schwender Gordon was also a teacher of Fashion and Design in the New
York State University system. She
even wrote the book (which I can find no record of online) that was used as the
basis of the university system’s curriculum. Somewhere, I hope there is an archive that has a treasure
trove of more of her fashion renderings.
Maybe one day I’ll get to see it, and in the meantime I need to look into
restoring this one.
On another note, a little bit more about the framing -
When I pulled apart the original frame I found that the only backing that was used was some cardboard from a
product called Chase’s Domino Mints
that promised:
Chase’s Domino Mints are
Strictly Quality mints, and are in a class all by themselves—Not an ounce of
glucose, starch or other adulterants used, thus leaving no unpleasant
“after-taste.” A few Chase’s Mints
every day chases all indigestion away.
90 years ago it was candy that claimed to be medicinal.
Nowadays we have other medicinal sweets
here in California.
It seems Chase’s
is still business, but there is no mention of the mints on their
website.
