PERA BARTLETT - PAINTED NATURAL

DETAILS Height 11cm Width 6.5cm Weight 6oz Materials: Gypsum, wood, acrylic  Plinth Cube / Plinth Star: H 4.5cm / Gypsum   Director of the royal fruit and vegetable gardens at the Palace of Versailles, Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie reported that “nature does not show anything so beautiful nor so noble as the pear. It is pear that makes the greatest honor on the tables.” He cultivated over five hundred varieties of pears for the table of King Louis XIV. And the Sun King was known to send gifts of pears to other heads of state throughout Europe. Pears are one of the few fruits that have an extensive global history, reaching back to about 1000 B.C. In ‘The Odyssey’, Homer called the pear a “gift from the Gods.” The pear was sacred to two goddesses in Greek mythology – Hera and Aphrodite, as well as their Roman counterparts.   And the Chinese considered the pear, which they call “li,” to be a symbol of immortality. Given the nickname “butter fruit” because of their soft, buttery texture, pear varieties radiated across Europe in the 18th century and there are currently over three thousand different types grown worldwide. The pear tree was most famously immortalized alongside a partridge in the popular Christmas carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas.     Please note each item is made by hand, slight variations are part of the process making each item unique