Antique Relief Carved Panel with Portrait in Profile man with tools it certainly makes me smile

it certainly makes me smile every time I look at it

with a few minor dings and paint loss here and there

Brooks would done with it clearly a great many times

but veering toward pure abstraction

and think Magritte’s Treachery of Images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe) was about as perfect a means of addressing the nature of representation as there’s been

Antique Relief Carved Panel with Portrait in Profile man with tools it certainly makes me smileI found this in Vermont but believe its origins are European, and my guess would be French, perhaps portraying an explorer of distant lands, with what I take for mountains or the edges of landmasses at the corners. Or, maybe, in his finery, he's no less than a king, ruling lands near and far. Whatever the case, I think the panel is quite wonderfully carved, and quite a character he is with that long mane and mustache and chin up profile making me