Osterstrauss (Easterbouquet)

Since I was a child, we always had a big vase with branches full of flowers for Easter in the house. Often apple of forsythia branches. They were brought in bare around 3 weeks before Easter and flowered by the time Easter had arrived. My mother had painted the eggs she used for decoration. What you see here are at least 11 of her "works". She must have made at least 150 during her life, each one a little piece of art. She gave many of them away , some went the way were all eggs go, they are fragile after all. Three of the ones on these artificial branches have been painted right after the war in the first years of my life. They are all very precious to me.

Last year when I had decorated my "Osterstrauss" here in our house near the coast, I got that dreaded call that she had passed away. It was a special feeling for me to unwrap them one by one this morning and let them hang again from the branches in all their glory. All these memories....