Fabulous Antique Darner with Painted Face deterioration and executed in ballpoint pen

and executed in ballpoint pen I believe

which someone wrote in pencil right on it

Below the photo

with light general wear and a bit of staining to the silk

Fabulous Antique Darner with Painted Face deterioration and executed in ballpoint penI think the face painted long ago on this old darner is just fantastic feeling as if hovering in a sort of liminal zone between person and ghost, male and female, happy and sad, etc. And that marvelous old creamy white paint, with a bit of red on the cheeks, with what looks to be a fingerprint preserved for posterity in the dab at right. To my eye just a fabulous thing in all regards, which made my heart skip a beat when I spotted it an instant sense