Elf Collection | Ultra Rare | Three Piece Set | Pristine Condition
Somewhere upstream, a maple leaf came down on the creek — and two old elves looked at it and saw a ship.
Skipper stands at the helm in his navy peacoat and knit cap, hands on his hips, eyes up the rigging. The rudder, the mast, the patched canvas sail — all his own work, added so he could run the creek in any season and any weather, and upstream when the day calls for it. He is taking stock of it now, the way a captain does, and finding it sound.
Out at the bow, hung over the water on his elbows, is his first mate. Weyhay has the glass to his eye and not a care in the world. You or I would be in the creek at the first stiff breeze. This weathered, jolly old sailor is more at home on the leaf than off it.
This one is my grandfather's two lives in a single object. Robert "Bob" Simpich loved boats and loved sailing — he sailed out east as a young man, and I can still hear his tales of it, some of them tall, in every line of this piece. Here it all is: the rigging, the weather-stained canvas, the red pennant snapping off the masthead — folded straight into the elf world he spent fifty years building. Nothing else in the Simpich line does that.
The set comes as three pieces: the leaf boat on its finished wood base, Skipper, and Weyhay.
Sculpted by Robert Simpich, then cast, hand-painted, and dressed in hand-sewn clothing in the Simpich doll shop.
Elf Collection | Ultra Rare | Three Piece Set | Pristine Condition
Somewhere upstream, a maple leaf came down on the creek — and two old elves looked at it and saw a ship.
Skipper stands at the helm in his navy peacoat and knit cap, hands on his hips, eyes up the rigging. The rudder, the mast, the patched canvas sail — all his own work, added so he could run the creek in any season and any weather, and upstream when the day calls for it. He is taking stock of it now, the way a captain does, and finding it sound.
Out at the bow, hung over the water on his elbows, is his first mate. Weyhay has the glass to his eye and not a care in the world. You or I would be in the creek at the first stiff breeze. This weathered, jolly old sailor is more at home on the leaf than off it.
This one is my grandfather's two lives in a single object. Robert "Bob" Simpich loved boats and loved sailing — he sailed out east as a young man, and I can still hear his tales of it, some of them tall, in every line of this piece. Here it all is: the rigging, the weather-stained canvas, the red pennant snapping off the masthead — folded straight into the elf world he spent fifty years building. Nothing else in the Simpich line does that.
The set comes as three pieces: the leaf boat on its finished wood base, Skipper, and Weyhay.
Sculpted by Robert Simpich, then cast, hand-painted, and dressed in hand-sewn clothing in the Simpich doll shop.
