Tiny and ancient...

Peter Taylor is a writer and illustrator, a very talented calligrapher - and an admirer of small things, just like Violet. 

Peter says: "I love photographing minute fungi growing on the ground and have always collected small things wherever I can find them. When I was a child, I asked adults who we visited as a family if they could spare something small for my 'museum', which I housed in a drawer. Many were very generous and some of the objects must have been in their own families for a long time. When I was 30 and moved from England to Australia in 1982, I worked for a shop owner and his wife who, as soon as the shop finished trading at Saturday lunchtime, took me antique hunting with them - and as you've guessed, while they chose tables and chairs, my attraction was always to the smallest things in each display. Some I've just had to buy, including an ancient Venetian glass bead, a tiny half-groat coin and pages of medieval books that could have easily been hidden if necesary when they were first written. This passion of mine for small things has often been remarked on by my friends, one of whom noted that even my wife is only 5 foot tall."

 

From Peter's collection:

An early 20th century toy: two storks that open, each with a little baby or person inside. These figures the size of a pencil point have jointed limbs that can be moved.

A complete 16 page London evening newspaper dated 1873, the size of CD. 17 lines of type fit in the height of the sharpened end of a pencil.