MAY FRIEND, Very Tender and Evocative 1898 Folk Art Still Bank with Cracked Glass Front small bowl Foucault's 1851 pendulum in the

Foucault's 1851 pendulum in the rotunda of the National Museum of History in Washington DC

were important in offering pencils according to a system of standard grades

pie crusts

but I think more specifically it's about the singular individuality of portraits and simultaneous sense of connection to broader humanity they offer

The former

MAY FRIEND, Very Tender and Evocative 1898 Folk Art Still Bank with Cracked Glass Front small bowl Foucault's 1851 pendulum in theI love this thing. When I first saw it (at an antiques show in Maine), I read "May Friend" as a sort of descriptor rather than as a girl's name, and, because it struck me as looking very much like a cage stage, with the glass providing a view into the interior, and this excellent lettering closely framing the glass like titles, I imagined a cricket or a butterfly or a lightening bug as the "May Friend" this object might welcome and house. (And with no