Finding treasure at the Brooklyn Flea
2 Feb
We strolled around the Brooklyn Flea this weekend, eagerly sampling Kumquat Cupcakes (delicious), hot cocoa from Nunu, and coffee from Crop to Cup. Honestly, for us, half the reason to attend the Brooklyn Flea is for the insane collection of food purveyors. The Flea’s winter location through March 28th is the Williamsburgh Savings Bank. This old bank (known as the tallest completed building in Brooklyn) is a thing of beauty, with a limestone and marble interior and mosaics throughout. I really need to bring my camera next time.
We’re not the biggest flea market people; After five minutes, I get tired of digging through ‘potential treasure’! But, on this particular visit, we found so-called treasure nearly immediately: these incredible Yawata Uma horses, purchased from a vendor who had recently bought an entire estate full of Japanese items. He estimated that these horses are from about 1950.
According to the helpful card included with our purchase, the Yawata Uma horse is one of three well known Japanese folk art horses. The horses are made in the town of Hachinohe, modeled after the horses of the Yabusame ceremony. These horses are still made from just a hatchet and chisel. For some fascinating pictures and background of the Hachinohe Toy Wooden Horse Factory, check out Jim Bryant’s photographs.
The vendor was selling two horses and we didn’t have the heart to separate them.
flying reindeer?
The Brooklyn Flea takes place every Saturday and Sunday. Even if you don’t come home with a fun treasure, you will definately leave with a satisfied belly!
Amazing! I have one of those horses. It’s the white one and it’s about 5 times bigger than these seem to be. It was given to us as a sign of friendship by two engineers from Japan who were visiting our home for their first American Thanksgiving.
It’s nice to see two more of them here.
That’s awesome! I’d love to see it next time we visit…