Antique Relief Carved Panel with Portrait in Profile man with tools with a few minor dings

with a few minor dings and paint loss here and there

and think Magritte’s Treachery of Images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe) was about as perfect a means of addressing the nature of representation as there’s been

as much as anything else in the world

or how it came to have barnacles all over it

but veering toward pure abstraction

Antique Relief Carved Panel with Portrait in Profile man with tools with a few minor dingsI found this in Vermont but believe its origins are European, and my guess would be French, perhaps portraying an explorer of distant lands, with what I take for mountains or the edges of landmasses at the corners. Or, maybe, in his finery, he's no less than a king, ruling lands near and far. Whatever the case, I think the panel is quite wonderfully carved, and quite a character he is with that long mane and mustache and chin up profile making me