A is for Art's Artisan Accouchement!

Don'tcha' just love Google! We looked at several uses of Art's smaller Nativity figurines last year, and some of these (next few Nativity posts) were supposed to publish then too, but time waits for no man!

This is the smaller (12 items) set of Art's take on what are - I think - old Italian Precepi, in the larger size; not Fontanini sculpts, as far as I know, and there are several sets to look at one way or another, but this is another of those ready-made vignettes with a small assortment of the main characters, a few wood off-cuts (actually carefully formulated pieces, for mass-production!) and - not forgetting - some moss!

Carried/commissioned by Birthdays, the card & gift chain, I took the opportunity to look up Gloria In Excelsis Deo and find out exactly what it means (so you don't have to!), and it's "Glory to God in the highest" which makes sense, it then gets complicated and starts talking about the 'greater' and 'lesser doxologies' . . . at which point I lose the will to stay interested!

You can see that the wooden components are machine routed (larger parts) or die-cut sheet materials . . . nowadays it'll all be laser-cutting! The plastic figures are glued below the moss in the same manner as the previously seen ceramic ones.

Note however; that Joseph is unpainted apart from a few gold-painted highlights, and the baby Jesus is moulded into his manger - as with most of these sets more of a Moses-basket (some irony there!) than a actual manger. And in doing so; follows the smaller scale sets we looked at last year.