Wonderful Welded Wire Insect (with Spiral Tongue!) antique laboratory with the seven gesturing hands

with the seven gesturing hands to my eye together making for quite a satisfying composition

not pictured here

definitely made more so for the toll the years have taken on them

and then an iridescent round bead

here are three vintage (c

Wonderful Welded Wire Insect (with Spiral Tongue!) antique laboratory with the seven gesturing handsAt first I thought perhaps this was meant to be a cicada, but now I think maybe a long tongued fly; really, that long spiral out front is like the rolled tongue of a butterfly, or that of a salamander! Whatever the case, quite a wonderful bug it is, I think, composed of what looks to me a combination of iron, steel and copper wire creatively and dexterously welded together, with a lovely delicacy that comes especially from the treatment of the wings,