SOLD Wonderful Folk Art Needle Lace Medallion: Robed Woman with Book (Mourning Picture?) dancing dolls I think daguerreotypes of paintings

I think daguerreotypes of paintings are such special things

Much better experienced in person than in photographs

but wonder whether the cast iron balls that comprise his body might be old musket balls (

I've also seen notes that the lid was designed to  serve as a sort of pedestal for the bowl in serving

SOLD Wonderful Folk Art Needle Lace Medallion: Robed Woman with Book (Mourning Picture?) dancing dolls I think daguerreotypes of paintingsI've always got an eye out for handmade figurative lace, the folkier and more singular the better, so was delighted to find this piece this week, most of all for the fact that its subject holds a book in her hand! Though I'm not certain, I might guess this was made as a mourning piece, with our somewhat mournful looking woman holding one hand over her heart and perhaps reading a prayer from the book in the other, standing in front of what looks like