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China Cabinet The most delicate of porcelain is made by angry fire. The magma of manufactory, Vesuvial spits, globs and drops, imitating how the earth made itself from a belly of entombed or tunnelled flame. And it creates this wasp-waisted girl in crinolines, cheeks just ablush, slim fingers offering a posy of forget-me-nots for their ceramic scent, her slipper cool enough to step on ice. Soon she shall have her spaniel and her swain, Jemima Puddleduck and Mr Fox for company, he in knee-breeches and frock coat, hands behind his back looking most lawyerly as he inclines to listen in. This is her domain where she can breathe air as un-flecked as her gown. Live here my lady, safe from all that muck outside: you are the beauty we have come to know. JEFFREY WAINWRIGHT | 16
page 17
Homus Economicus And thousands of ’em sold, these gentle and respectful maids, their blushes packed in straw, all entrusted to the slow canals, just as Etruscan potters sent their stuff down the Tiber to the mouth of Rome. Homus economicus, dragging from the local quag a tea-service to Queen Charlotte’s taste; mollifying ‘fat housewives’ who want their ware more or less ‘yallower Mr Wagwood, if you will.’ ‘Stout classicist’, entrepreneur of grave-goods, always testing novelty: black figure, red figure, Venus modelled against a choice of blue, black, lilac, sage-green or any manganese that can be found. Then he’s liberation’s honourable fashionista: his medallion of the kneeling slave in jasper-ware – ‘Am I not a man and a brother?’ – soon à la mode as tea-caddies, hair-pins, bracelets. Thousands of ’em sold. 17 | WHAT MUST HAPPEN

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China Cabinet

The most delicate of porcelain is made by angry fire. The magma of manufactory, Vesuvial spits, globs and drops, imitating how the earth made itself from a belly of entombed or tunnelled flame.

And it creates this wasp-waisted girl in crinolines, cheeks just ablush, slim fingers offering a posy of forget-me-nots for their ceramic scent, her slipper cool enough to step on ice.

Soon she shall have her spaniel and her swain, Jemima Puddleduck and Mr Fox for company, he in knee-breeches and frock coat, hands behind his back looking most lawyerly as he inclines to listen in.

This is her domain where she can breathe air as un-flecked as her gown. Live here my lady, safe from all that muck outside: you are the beauty we have come to know.

JEFFREY WAINWRIGHT | 16

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