My yarli. Which Barry sits upon.
People are asking, so allow me to explain:
There is a place called Knaresborough in darkest Yorkshire, which used to host one of the most interesting galleries in the country. The way it worked - I understand - is that the guy who owned it had made pots of money in the City, and now passed his time in travelling. And wherever he travelled - Africa, India, China - he bought stuff that he liked, and sent it back. You might find the gallery full of Vietnamese lacquerware, or African tribal games, or Cantonese furniture. Anything, really, but it was always lovely. And expensive. I used to pine.
Backstage, though, behind the gallery was a great barn where they stored whatever hadn't sold out front. That was a treasure trove to poke around in. And one day, poking, I found my yarli.
Click him to embiggen:
He is the head of a temple lion from southern India; he might (I am told) have sat on the steps of the temple, or else he might have been part of a juggernaut and dragged around the city streets. He is, perhaps, eighteenth century. He has traces of paint remaining, but very few; and he is delightfully, deliciously rotten. One eye is gone, and his hairy fringes; his iron teeth survive. His back is like balsa wood, it crumbles at a touch.
Which is, of course, why Barry should not sit on him. Ahem.
There is a place called Knaresborough in darkest Yorkshire, which used to host one of the most interesting galleries in the country. The way it worked - I understand - is that the guy who owned it had made pots of money in the City, and now passed his time in travelling. And wherever he travelled - Africa, India, China - he bought stuff that he liked, and sent it back. You might find the gallery full of Vietnamese lacquerware, or African tribal games, or Cantonese furniture. Anything, really, but it was always lovely. And expensive. I used to pine.
Backstage, though, behind the gallery was a great barn where they stored whatever hadn't sold out front. That was a treasure trove to poke around in. And one day, poking, I found my yarli.
Click him to embiggen:
He is the head of a temple lion from southern India; he might (I am told) have sat on the steps of the temple, or else he might have been part of a juggernaut and dragged around the city streets. He is, perhaps, eighteenth century. He has traces of paint remaining, but very few; and he is delightfully, deliciously rotten. One eye is gone, and his hairy fringes; his iron teeth survive. His back is like balsa wood, it crumbles at a touch.
Which is, of course, why Barry should not sit on him. Ahem.