Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This was purchased in a small haul from the antiques annex in Red Bank, New Jersey recently. (Other treasures from that trip were recently posted about here and here.) I snatched it up for a few dollars because I liked the toy the kid is holding. It sat on a cabinet in NJ while we were there and I grabbed it up to bring it back so I could spend a bit more time studying it. It’s a tiny 2″x 3″ picture is the least expensive self-standing gold trimmed frame and I admit this is the first I have spent time looking at it.

There is a photo somewhere in the world (or was) of me very much like this, minus the nice toy and I think I was shaking the crib bars more like I was in prison. There are stories about my being anti-crib although despite that I have always been an excellent sleeper, even in the days when I was first brought home as a newborn. (As I write I am still a bit dazed and sleepy on this Saturday morning after a hard night’s sleep.) However, if I had one holding such a nice toy I could probably lay my hands on it.

While my older sister Loren made it into adulthood rarely sleeping more than 3-4 hours a night (as a small child she’d roam the house and when she got older we all got used to sleeping to her practicing the violin at all hours), always raring to go with energy, I slept through my first night home. This scared the heck out of my mother who however quickly adjusted and learned to enjoy it.

Of course it is a pretty typical photograph and likely there is a variation of most of us in our parent’s homes. (In the world of digital photos is this still true? Are there printed out pics from phones of this sort everywhere? I wonder.) I do like this nice big rabbit toy (I have a future post about a rabbit toy – a rare stepping out into a different species which I do occasionally) and this one wears a suit complete with sporty cap. I would have been pleased with such a toy no doubt.

Kim was the first to point out that maybe there is something pro about this photo. It is a bit perfectly posed. This morning while looking at it I had a hard time deciding if the hand holding the rabbit could really belong to the small child or if it was someone below and behind. Could that arm belong to that child? Seems long and maybe large? What do you think? Toys are piled in the crib and we can’t really see. On the other hand the composition is not so impressive and the contrast a bit low so it is hard to imagine a pro did it.

It is hard to pin a year to it – the stuffed rabbit is the only clue at all and I would say it could be anytime from the 1950’s forward a decade – or back a few years? Meanwhile, somehow it has now made its way to the Pictorama archive where toys are always appreciated in all forms.