Black Madonna

I wanted to post new pictures of the mermaid carving, not because she's changed any but because she looks different in so many different lights. She has landed now on a cupboard in the living room of a massive hand-built Tuscan-style house full of art I'm now living in (with an attendant collection of artists, hippies and critters). Mantel space is at a premium, or rather it's restricted to the caprice of Zito the Younger, my landlord. Zito the Elder built the place by hand and it's full of his art and artifacts, but also of other artifacts which Z2 collects. The black madonna is probably a relic of the Elder Zito. I didn't want to particularly include her, but there she was and the mermaid looked good and off I went to take the pictures for this ensemble:

And, as usual, I found that some judicious cropping could produce a provocation where none had been intended: