Minas Gerais, Brazil, South America Torrinha (Little Tower) Marigold Covered Compote
Description
Torrinha (Little Tower) covered compote. First, let me talk about the pattern. Torrinha is a very difficult compote to find, in non carnival glass and especially in carnival. Because of this, I decided to buy this Torrinha with no underplate. Aldo, the seller, told me that the underplate must be in one of the closed boxes that she has and she will try to find it for me.
The reason why, I think, Torrinha is a very difficult piece to find, is that, as I know, they were used in churches during mass to store the holy wafer. So, maybe, this piece was not made to be sold as other compotes, but to be used by churches.
This was made in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil where most of the glass covered compotes are found. You can make a google search for the cities, Ouro Preto, Congonhas do Campo, Mariana, Sabará, Diamantina, São João del Rey, and see how classy these pieces could be in a mass in these historical cities!
And how this is in my hand? A woman reader from my blog, Eloá Almeida, who lives in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, wrote me an e-mail saying that she had a piece that belonged to her grandmother and asked if I would be interested in buying it. When she sent me Torrinhas's photos, I did not believe that it was this compote! After two weeks of price negotiation and one week awaiting delivery (Curitiba is 1000 quilometers far from Belo Horizonte) it was finally mine.
When the piece was in my hands, I wrote Eloá and asked her for its history and this made me even more suprised! Her grandmother, Estelita de Almeida, and her grandfather, João Augusto, were the owners of some hotels in a place named Serra do Cipó, in the State of Minas Gerais. Hotels like Fazenda Palácio and Fazenda Chapéu do Sol, places with histories, since Brazil was not a republic, had Dom Pedro II as Imperador. And this Torrinha was a gift from Jucelino Kubitschek, in the 1950's, to her grandmother. And who was Jucelino Kubitschek (JK)? Only one of the most famous presidents that Brazil has had...JK was the one responsible, in the 1960's, for the construction of our current Federal Capital, Brasília. So, this Torrinha has history!
The Claudio Deveikis Collection
