Yes, it’s almost that time again, the mistletoe season. Indeed my first mistletoe gig this autumn is less than 2 weeks away, so I need to get back into mistletoe mode very soon.
Here, for starters, are some diary dates for Tenbury Wells. Only two auctions this year – on the mornings of Tuesday 26th November and 3rd December – details at https://nickchampion.co.uk/auctions/holly-and-mistletoe/
The main Festival Day, complete with Druid Ceremony is on Saturday 7th December.
For Mistletoe Diary this year I hope (do I say this every year?) to cover a wide range of issues – including some interesting ecological points, comparisons with other parasitic plants, and, amongst other cultural angles, re-visiting mistletoe in Art Nouveau designs. This phenomenon was a particular feature of continental European design and I hope discussing these will help (me at least), in a very modest way, assuage some of the current crazy UK v continental Europe tensions.
So here, to kick off, is one of the plates from Edmond Lachenal’s mistletoe dinner service, designed for subscribers to Les Annales Politiques et Littéraires in the late 1890s.
This is just a teaser pic for now, I’ll say more about Monsieur Lachenal as the season progresses…
Jonathan's Mistletoe Diary 