#yard globe

[cgclarkphoto]

birdbath with petals - cg photography

[windfallgardenschenleyfarms]

History of the Gazing Ball 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yard_globe

Gazing balls originated in 13th century Venice, Italy, where they were hand-blown by skilled craftsmen.

King Ludwig II of Bavaria, sometimes referred to as Mad King Ludwig, is said to have adorned his Herrenchiemsee palace with lawn balls, however, the palace and gardens were never finished after Ludwig died in 1885. Sometime later the gardens, based on Versailles, were open to the public and visitors may have seen the lawn balls, but the Victorian period was quickly coming to an end. By the 1880s and 90s the nature of English landscape was changing dramatically with William Robinson's and Gertrude Jekyll's designs. It would be difficult to say that Mad King Ludwig had much influence in the area of garden ornaments.

Gazing balls enjoyed a brief resurgence in popularity in the 1930s. They appear in a number of modernistic gardens of the period as a variation on the traditional sundial or birdbath centrepiece. Many of them from this period may have been made in polished metal rather than glass.

Subsequently, many people in the 1950s and afterwards viewed them as a bit tacky; an example of prosaic suburban taste of the interwar period on a level with garden gnomes – they have never quite regained status.

[docileeffects]