Sunday Stamps: Paintings

This Sunday Stamps theme is 'Paintings'.

Dutch Post issued stamps of paintings by Vincent van Gogh several times. Last year - 2015 - PostNL issued four stamp sheets containing ten stamps for national mail, themed:
- Landscapes
- Portraits
- Peasant Life
- City and Village.

Three of these were easy available in post agencies, the 'portraits' stamp sheet was sold out immediately. But fortunately we could order this one via the internet, be it that it only was available in a four stamp sheet folder.
I've used the portrait stamps already, but the front side of this folder is a matching one, too. It shows one of the portraits, namely Vincent van Gogh's postman, Joseph Roulin. Van Gogh has painted more than one portraits of Mr. Roulin. The version shown here you can see in real in the pretty Kröller-Müller Museum.



Besides the four national stamp sheets, PostNL issued also a folder containing four stamp sheets for international mail, containing five stamps each. These were available as a four-in-one-folder package and via the internet only, and fortunately I could order these.
The themes were:
- Flowers
- Self-portraits
- Still lifes
- Interiors

The first mentioned two stamp sheets I've sent to Eva, and the other two I just scanned to show you for today's Sunday Stamps:

the Still lifes:



And the Interiors:



See more interesting paintings on stamps at and via today's Sunday Stamps.

Sunday stamps: Sunrise, sunset

This Sunday Stamps' theme is 'Sunrise, sunset'.

As far as I know (but correct me if I'm wrong) Dutch sunrise/sunset photos have never been released on stamps.
Fortunately I found some art stamps related to the theme.

The famous 'Sower' by Vincent van Gogh:



On the painting 'Herfst' ('Autumn') by Leo Gestel the sun might have been rising too much already to name it 'sunrise'. However it still gives me some sunrise/sunset feeling:



Check the Sunday Stamps website and the links below this blog post for stunning sunrise/sunset photos!

Sunday Stamps: Farm Animals

This Sunday Stamps theme is 'Farm Animals'.
As animals in general belong to my favourite subjects I am happy to search my collection to share some stamps with you.

Farm animals have been subject to Sunday stamps before and I have contributed then. However there are so many nice stamps on farm animals, that I think the theme has to be repeated on a regular base :-)

These two animals I received from Ukraine. I love the way they have been illustrated.



These stamps show the 'Lakenvelder' cow. The stamps are'personalized stamps', issued in limited edition by the Lakenvelder cow association, via the Dutch mail service:



Sadly in the Netherlands most farm animals live a miserable life, kept in small spaces in stables without daylight. The percentage of animal-friendly farming is far too small in our country, and alas the Dutch government listened to the EU who withdrew the milk quotas per 1st of April this year, so many farmers choose to keep even more cows in too little room. I hope one day (or better: now) all Dutch will change their habit of buying cheap, animal unfriendly meat into a better habit, of buying no meat at all or at least meat from animals who have been respected and kept in an animal friendly environment (and also I hope all will support NGO's like 'Wakker Dier' and 'Milieudefensie' who organize good campaigns to raise awareness on animal welfare in farming). So that all animals can laugh again, like the pig on the Ukrainian stamp.

These lovely chicken stamp, showing more lucky farm animals, I received from Indonesia:



Last but not least, back to the Netherlands, where PostNL has issued stamps showing paintings by Vincent van Gogh. Two of them are related to an other farm animal: the sheep. Here shaven and the wool processed:



See for more stamps on farm Animals the Sunday Stamps blog and the links mentioned under the blog post.

Sunday Stamps: Bridges

This Sunday Stamps' theme is 'Bridges to anywhere'.

I love bridges. Similar to mail, bridges connect.

Fortunately mail companies all-over the world have issued bridge stamps, and I was the lucky receiver of some of them. Among them this one from Japan:



An other suspension bridge (so to see) is this one in Iceland:



The following Chinese stamp on top shows a covered bridge. I am not sure if the second stamp shows a bridge too, but at least the stamps belong to one serie:



This stamp from Germany seems to be a 'common' one as I received it more than once. Nevertheless the image keeps on being a beauty.
The bridge pictured is an arch bridge, a kind of bridge which is dear to me (I'll show stamps on my favourite - Dutch - bridge an other day). And don't you love the postmark?



From Russia arrived these great bridge stamps:



In the United Kingdom the Royal Mail has issued many bridge stamps. You can see them via the links at the Sunday Stamps post of today.
Here are two from the United Kingdom:





Besides receiving bridge stamps I've also send out.
This pretty bridge reminds of the Amsterdam canals. It has been designed by the late Dutch illustrator and author Sieb Posthuma:



A photo of the Skinny bridge, a movable bridge in Amsterdam, is this one:



The famous painter Vincent van Gogh has painted a similar bridge, after the drawing bridge in Arles, France:

Out: to Morocco and the United Kingdom

'La sieste' heet deze foto uit 1972 van Paul Almásy. Gelukkig had ik twee exemplaren, zodat ik ze naar twee postvrienden kon sturen die (net als ik) van plaatjes van lezende mensen houden.

The name of this picture (1972) is 'La sieste'. It has been made by Paul Almásy. Fortunately I found two copies, so I was able to send it to both mail friends who like pictures of reading people (like I do, too).



Met op de postzegels allerlei bekende mensen: de bouwer van de eerste onderzeeboot Cornelis Drebbel, de DJ Armin van Buuren, 'De Zouaaf' door Vincent van Gogh, en de Nederlandse koning.

On the stamps some well-known people: Cornelis Drebbel, who built the first navigable submarine (in 1620), Armin van Buuren, the Dutch DJ, 'The Zouave' by Vincent van Gogh, and the Dutch king.

Sunday stamps: Chairs

This Sunday's theme of Viridian's Sunday Stamps is 'Anything you wish'.
There are so many themes so I always think it hard to choose one. Fortunately, thanks to Micu from Mail a Smile, I received some interesting stamps from Hungary.
They attracted my attention because of the fact that I hardly see this theme on stamps. Is that weird? Yes, it is, because many of us are spending a lot of time on this object (especially while writing letters and postcards): the chair!



Among Dutch stamps I found the chair you see below, called 'zigzagstoel', 'zigzag chair'. It has been designed in 1932 by Gerrit Rietveld. Rietveld has designed more chairs which were very unusual in his time. Eight years before this 'zigzag chair' he designed the Rietveld-Schröder house, which now is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
This stamp is part of a ten stamps sheet, issued in 2012 because of the re-opening, after a long-term renovation, of the Stedelijk Museum ('Municipal Museum') of Modern Art in Amsterdam.



An other chair, in which we fortunately don't sit too often and which we like to avoid as much as possible, is the dentist's chair. Every time I visit the dentist I must think of how Mr. Bean treated the dentist's chair, which alleviates such visits a bit. So does this stamp (I love comics on stamps).
This stamp has been issued in 1984 as part of a 'children's welfare stamps' sheet. The design is by Dutch illustrator Joost Swarte.



And there are some more chairs to been seen on the terrace, in this famous painting by Vincent van Gogh: