Lambrou Pens Rossi Harvest Prototype 2009

by Jim Mamoulides, August 2, 2024

Lambrou Pens Rossi Harvest prototype 2009

Another Harvest on Cyprus

Harvest has been a recurring theme with Classic Pens and Lambrou Pens models. These include the 2001 Classic Pens LR2 Harvest, a sterling silver overlay on a Jasper Red Parker Duofold Centennial. The LR2 overlay design is based on an original watercolor by Jenny Lambrou of golden wheat, grapevines, and morning glory flowers reminiscent of harvest time on the island Cyprus. It’s an open, intertwining mesh of ripe seed heads of golden wheat and winding morning glory buds, leaves, and flowers leaving cutouts revealing the marbled Jasper Red acrylic of the cap and barrel as a background.

Andreas Lambrou’s visual for these designs came from his home island and can be summed up on this quote, “Cyprus is an island on the eastern Mediterranean Sea. It has two mountain regions, along the north and the south. The valley in between these mountains is cultivated with crops. In the summer when the crops are ready for harvesting the valley becomes a sea of golden wheat. The mountain regions of the island are abundant with fruit orchards and vineyards. Grapevines are also a common sight in the gardens of many Cypriot houses. The Mediterranean climate is ideal for growing beautiful flowers such as roses, carnations, jasmine and morning glory.”

One of the watercolors used for the AL4 Minori (Harvest) maki-e decorated pens

Next was the maki-e decorated pen by Takuroo Masuda, the 2006 AL4 Harvest. The design was also based on the Jenny Lambrou watercolor. A total of 15 pieces on the Parker Duofold Centennial and 15 pieces on the Classic Legend were made. The Rossi Harvest prototype shown here followed in 2009, but we will get to that story in just a minute. The last version was the 2020 LN2 Harvest, also inspired by the Jenny Lambrou watercolor. There were 10 pieces planned as oversize Flame Red diffusion bonded acrylic Legend pens hand crafted by Paul Rossi and then decorated by artist Yoshitsugu Nakama. Nakama’s design did not use urushi, as he is allergic to it, so the grapevine leaves, bunches of grapes, wheat stalks, and morning glory flowers were executed using modern paints.

In 2009, Paul Rossi was asked to create a sterling silver overlay pen with a similar design as the 2001 LR2 Harvest with a few notable changes. The design is executed on 1.5 mm thick sterling silver tubes that allowed Rossi to carve the high relief design and with the textures and details that enhance the individual components of the work. The final design, shown here, is a composition of intertwined morning glory flowers and wheat stalks on the cap and barrel overlays with a silhouette of the island of Cyprus surrounded with this design on the barrel sleeve. The island image pulls the design shown on the LR2 into the local scenery that inspired it. Other new design elements include olive branches engraved on the bands above and below the barrel sleeve and extending the cap sleeve to the edge of the cap lip, creating a sense that the overlay extends continuously from the cap to the barrel when the pen is closed. The clip is hand crafted by Rossi in sterling silver. Paul Rossi placed his hallmark on the cap band and top barrel band.

Lambrou Pens Rossi Harvest prototype 2009

As with the other pens, this prototype is named Harvest, to reflect harvest time on the eastern Mediterranean island. The base pen was completely hand crafted in the style of Classic Pens Mythos, a large but slim profile pen, 6 inches long when closed. The Flame Red acrylic shows through the sterling silver overlay accentuating Rossi’s work similar to early Waterman mottled red hard rubber overlay pens from the 1910s and the 1920s.

Rossi spent about 100 hours creating the prototype and the proposed list price was to be $8,250 in 2009. The pen was to be offered with a choice of five 18 karat gold two-tone Peter Bock nibs in grades of fine, medium, broad, fine italic, and broad italic. It's not known how many were made or sold.

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Referenced PenHero.com Article

Classic Pens LR2 Harvest 2001