Just framed up this lovely lady to hang in my kitchen. She is a blotter – a piece of absorbent paper for (in theory) blotting up ink from your letters. They were given away as promotional items. Particularly in Europe.
But she is in absolutely no danger of blotting up anything for me. Far too nice for that.
DRU enamelware pans hailed from Holland and so, I have to assume, does this bit of paper. It seems that DRU pans were similar to those bright Le Creuset numbers you can hardly lift up. But DRU was often patterned with a little delft symbol. It doesn’t appear to be a brand in existence any more.
I love the two-dimensional modernist take on a cook in this 1930s image. Her nice face wrought from a few lines. Her graphic dress and toning apron. A bit of tiled wall. The big, bold, silver-studded D.R.U. letters making up her worktop. There doesn’t seem to be anything cooking in that large pot either. So nothing to mess-up the clean lines of it all.
Now, I’m no cook. But I love cooking-related ephemera, nicely illustrated old cookbooks, nice kitchenware and food packaging. In the same way I like gardening images but don’t garden. It’s the quaint domestic subject matter that gets me every time.
Blotters were also done by lots of businesses in the UK and given out by reps to clients and customers and were a great way of keeping your company name on people’s desks. As the fountain pen went out of fashion their usefulness diminished. Also I would imagine quite a difficult item to produce except by now (largely) letterpress techniques.
Your blog is so nice !!
Thanks. Yours too, I have subscribed to it. 🙂
what a great design! nice to discover your blog btw, from a link on quad royal:)
Thanks. The Quad’s have been good to Shelf Appeal.
So happy to be stirring she is! Gorgeous print.
Obviously it’s the shiny new pan that makes her smile.
Detail is amazing, not that big on the brand name D.R.U. though.