Primitive Handmade Whisk-type Brush with Wire Wrapped Wood Handle - Reserved for J.L Cinnabar hand-painted with silver and gold

hand-painted with silver and gold flowers and arrows in relief

Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Tennessee

it was purchased from an estate in Littleton

but also because I didn’t know exactly what it was and wanted to find out

Primitive Handmade Whisk-type Brush with Wire Wrapped Wood Handle - Reserved for J.L Cinnabar hand-painted with silver and goldThis may be my favorite brush yet! I think the construction is amazing, with what I believe are horsehair bristles running both horizontally, along the handle and, and vertically, tethered by wire, and then bound again by stitched string. The lines, patterns, textures make this feel as much like sculpture as a functional object, and a really satisfying and substantial one. Just gorgeous. I believe there was once a metal end cap attached to the end of