Elf Collection | Pristine Condition | Designed by Robert Simpich
Zippidee has found the cider jug, and he isn't drinking from it.
He's sat down flat on the ground, legs out in front of him, head tipped all the way back, lips pursed at the mouth of the jug — and what he's doing is playing it. Blow across the open neck of a jug and it answers with a low woody note, somewhere below a tuba. That's a jug band, and it's real music made from a thing that was never meant to be an instrument. Bob gave this elf the one instrument you can only own by first emptying it.
The jug is a proper little piece of pottery: two-tone stoneware, dark brown glaze over the shoulder and neck, warm orange below, with a loop handle you can see daylight through and CIDER lettered on the side in plain black. It's the kind of jug that used to sit in the corner of every farm kitchen, rendered small enough for an elf to wrestle.
His face is doing something the other elves don't. The eyes have rolled up and sideways, the cheeks are round with the effort, and the mouth is a tight little O painted red inside — an expression that only makes sense if you understand what he's doing. It's a joke you have to look at twice, which is the best kind.
He's dressed simply, because the jug is the event: a mustard suede tunic cut in points at the hem, black felt mitts wrapped around the jug's waist, a dark plaid scarf in navy and green with yellow and red threading through it, fringed and bunched at his neck, and a black felt hat cut in tall points, sitting back off a head of sculpted white curls. Sculpted terracotta shoes, oversized, planted where he dropped them.
Zippidee was designed by my grandfather Robert "Bob" Simpich.
And he's dated. The side of his boot is signed Simpich © 1982 — legible without even picking him up. The cider jug carries its own © Simpich mark as well: the shop signed the instrument separately from the musician.
Cast from Bob's design, then hand-painted and dressed in hand-sewn clothing in the Simpich doll shop.
Elf Collection | Pristine Condition | Designed by Robert Simpich
Zippidee has found the cider jug, and he isn't drinking from it.
He's sat down flat on the ground, legs out in front of him, head tipped all the way back, lips pursed at the mouth of the jug — and what he's doing is playing it. Blow across the open neck of a jug and it answers with a low woody note, somewhere below a tuba. That's a jug band, and it's real music made from a thing that was never meant to be an instrument. Bob gave this elf the one instrument you can only own by first emptying it.
The jug is a proper little piece of pottery: two-tone stoneware, dark brown glaze over the shoulder and neck, warm orange below, with a loop handle you can see daylight through and CIDER lettered on the side in plain black. It's the kind of jug that used to sit in the corner of every farm kitchen, rendered small enough for an elf to wrestle.
His face is doing something the other elves don't. The eyes have rolled up and sideways, the cheeks are round with the effort, and the mouth is a tight little O painted red inside — an expression that only makes sense if you understand what he's doing. It's a joke you have to look at twice, which is the best kind.
He's dressed simply, because the jug is the event: a mustard suede tunic cut in points at the hem, black felt mitts wrapped around the jug's waist, a dark plaid scarf in navy and green with yellow and red threading through it, fringed and bunched at his neck, and a black felt hat cut in tall points, sitting back off a head of sculpted white curls. Sculpted terracotta shoes, oversized, planted where he dropped them.
Zippidee was designed by my grandfather Robert "Bob" Simpich.
And he's dated. The side of his boot is signed Simpich © 1982 — legible without even picking him up. The cider jug carries its own © Simpich mark as well: the shop signed the instrument separately from the musician.
Cast from Bob's design, then hand-painted and dressed in hand-sewn clothing in the Simpich doll shop.
