From Croatia, from Sweden, from the USA.....

954 – from Danielle in Nebraska another bookish card for my collection.  I wonder why there are so many postcards of books and reading (not that I’m complaining – far from it!)?  This is not a photo, as it might appear first glance.  It’s a rather superb oil on canvas by John Frederick Peto (1854-1907).

 

Peto was an American trompe l'oeil ("fool the eye") painter who was long forgotten until his paintings were rediscovered.  In his day they were considered mere novelty and trickery and ignored by the artistic community.  Peto was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts at the same time as fellow trompe l'oeil artist William Harnett. Until he was in his mid-thirties, he submitted paintings regularly to the annual exhibitions at the Philadelphia Academy. In 1889, he moved to the resort town of Island Heights, New Jersey, where he worked in obscurity for the rest of his life. He and his wife took in seasonal boarders, he found work playing cornet at the town's camp revival meetings, and he supplemented his income by selling his paintings to tourists. He never had a gallery exhibition in his lifetime.

Trompe l'oeil is a genre of still life that aims to deceive the viewer into mistaking painted objects for reality. Exploiting the fallibility of human perception, the trompe l'oeil painter depicts objects in accordance with a set of rules unique to the genre. For example, Peto and Harnett both represented the objects in their paintings at their actual size, and the objects rarely were cut off by the edge of the painting, as this would allow a visual cue to the viewer that the depiction was not real. But the main technical device was to arrange the subject matter in a shallow space, using the shadow of the objects to suggest depth without the eye seeing actual depth. Thus the term trompe l'oeil—"fool the eye". 

A couple more ‘Forever’ stamps from 2013.

955 – It’s autumn and apple-picking season, says Monica, who sent me this lovely, gentle Jan Bergerlind painting from Sweden.

956 – from Gerrit in the Netherlands (NL-2090475).  Alkmaar is noted for its cheese market, every Friday during Summer.  

957 – from Veronica in Russia (RU-1968385) came this lovely Russian Folk Arts card. 

The stamp depicts a woollen shawl woven in Pavlovsky Posad in Moscow Oblast.

 958 – This is the second postcard I have had from Malaysian postcrosser Khor (MY-169659).  It shows the traditional Indian festival of Thaipusam.  It looks rather painful to me!!

Aren’t these the most beautiful stamps?

959 – And another wonderful Inge Look card – this one from Seija (FI-1880985).  They are coming in thick and fast!

This is the first time I’ve had one duplicated but since it’s my favourite I don’t mind at all – one of them can stay on my notice board.

960 – I thought this is my first Croatian card, thanks to Nikola (HR-46344), but I've discovered I have had a Croatian postcard previously but it was actually sent from Belarus so it didn't count.

 

Betina is a village located on the Croatian island of Murter, seven km from Tisno, where a drawbridge connects the island and the mainland. The largest of the Šibenik archipelago islands, and the closest to the mainland, it has been populated since the time of the Illyrians (tribe of Liburns). Remains of the Roman settlement of Colentum as well as many ruins of Roman villas, murals, and mosaic testify to its occupation during the period of the Roman Empire.