Eve's Apple

Beautifully ripe and shiny, here's an apple button that tested positive for Bakelite. Etched along the top, some faint lines imply leaves. This little apple also sports a green stem that might or might not be Bakelite. The stem is delicate and I don't plan on testing it. At any rate, this red button may just as well be a tomato, but I've got no qualms seeing it as an apple. Accompanying this unblemished find, I'm posting this month's Tamara de Lempicka painting. Here's Adam and Eve (c. 1932) with Eve clutching the forbidden fruit and a cluster of New York City skyscrapers crammed glamorously in an art deco corner. The male model was a policeman who Tamara invited off the streets to pose in her studio and the female was a regularly employed model who, during a lunch break, just so happened to be eating an apple—thus inspiring this masterpiece. Now housed in a private collection, the bold and magnificent work is considered one of the artist's signature paintings and a consummate icon of the art deco style.

-Sherbert McGee