Gloria Petyarre is an Autralian aborigine artist famous for
her paintings that incorporate images of the Australian bush. The scarf she designed for Hermes, Le Reve de
Gloria (Gloria’s Dream) depicts special leaves with medicinal properties, which
are used by the Aborigines to treat many ailments. She is the first Australian artist ever to
design an Hermes scarf.
Mrs Petyarr lives in the remote desert community of Utopia,
some 250 km northeast of Alice Springs . She has no telephone, and can only be reached
via a personal visit. She has travelled
and exhibited all over Australia Australia
I decided to post photos of this scarf, which I own in the
red and brown and black leaves on a white background with a red border version,
because there is very little information about it out there. It seems to be nobody’s ‘Grail’ scarf, and
there are few photos. While researching
it I found any number of photos purporting to be of Le Reve de Gloria which
were actually photos of a different scarf – Faubourg Express! I am posting lots of photos here, to help
anyone wanting to buy one second hand authenticate it.
The scarf was brought out in 2009. There is also a grey colour-way, also a blue
one and what appears to be a fuchsia/purple one. I have not found a complete list of
colour-ways. The scarf looks like it is
very easy to fake, and when I bought mine - from an Ebay seller with only 3
feedback points and few photos, so I stuck my neck out a bit there – I was
seriously worried that I might be landed with a fake. I gave it a chance because this scarf shows
up so rarely on Ebay, and I was quite keen to have it. I was lucky and the seller turned out to be
honest, albeit inexperienced. Hopefully
my photos will show any potential buyer what to look for if they find a Le Reve
de Gloria scarf they want to buy. Of
course it may be that the forgers never bothered to fake this scarf, given the
lack of interest shown by the scarf collecting community!
There is no name on this scarf. There is just the name of the artist, simply
GLORIA at the very top of the scarf near the border, in the centre, written in
caps. At the bottom of the scarf is
written, in similar free style, though not in caps, Hermès - Paris
This is a very beautiful and interesting scarf, very
different from the ones I usually buy.
If one looks at the leaf pattern long enough they start to move! I bought this scarf because I have been
coming home with a headache every single night because of the new database at
work – the less said the better. Lesser
mortals would have taken a painkiller, but as usual I self-medicated by buying
a scarf. Considering that the leaves
depicted are medicinal, it was a very apt purchase, I believe!
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| See the copyright? |
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| Copyright at right hand side, one cm above bottom of photo |
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| Copyright symbol again |
