I celebrated Christmas 2009 and the New Years in the Netherlands with some of my family. While there I visited an aunt, sister of my Mom, I had never met before. Family quarrels happen in a lot of families and we are one of them. I have no idea what all happened. My grandfather (born in 1877), who was a gold- and silversmith died in 1957. My Mom’s oldest sister took care of my grandmother, but because of the unfortunate events I never knew her. I was 13 years old when she died. My aunt has a lot of my grandfather’s work in her house. My uncle (also a Rudolph,) her brother and son of my grandfather who is the goldsmith now ( he is 92 years old), got again in contact with her (she is 98 years old) and so, I visited her on an afternoon.


This is my grandfather Rudolphus Arens playing his cello, painted by his brother Albert Arens.


It was great to see so many beautiful works of art of my grandfather, hanging on the wall or standing. One thing had a special appeal to me and that was a teapot set. He made it around 1920 and you can see the influence  of the Art Deco movement. He made it with a special hammer technique. It is made from silver tin.





My grandfather made a lot of art for churches and luckily in Nijmegen, a city in Holland, there is still one church who has his work. A lot of his work was destroyed during World War II. Also, my grandparents home burnt down with a lot of treasures.

In this church he crafted the pulpit. Incredible!





This Art Deco style beautiful owl is standing on the corner of the pulpit.









Kind of interesting how I come back to my family via the research of Kamakura Bori all the way in Japan: life makes a full circle!







.