Hatter with the Rabbit, time for a tea. (2026) Original Clay Sculpture by Elya Yalonetski

The Hatter and the White Rabbit (Bell Dolls)
Some characters never really belong to one author. Lewis Carroll gave us the Hatter and the White Rabbit in 1865, but they slipped out of the book almost immediately and have been wandering through our collective imagination ever since, turning up in paintings, films, fashion, dreams. Every generation redraws them. This is my version.
I wanted my Hatter to be different from the bearded, top-hatted gentleman we have all seen a hundred times. Mine is androgynous, slightly feverish, slightly otherworldly. Long auburn curls fall in carefully sculpted ringlets around a delicate face with high cheekbones, a small flushed mouth, and enormous turquoise eyes that look not quite at you and not quite past you. Neither man nor woman, neither fully here nor fully somewhere else. The kind of creature who might pour you tea and ask you a riddle in the same breath, and you would not be sure afterward whether any of it really happened.
The hat is its own small world. A double-decker tower of sculpted lace and brocade textures, glazed in dusty rose and pearl, finished with a deep red ceramic rose, soft green leaves, and a flutter of real silk ribbons in pink, gold, red, and green. The coat is a feast: striped trousers in mint, lilac, and coral, a polka-dotted coral overcoat dotted like a hundred tiny sweets, a bright blue bow at the throat, ruffled white cuffs, and small turquoise shoes that look ready to dance. In one gloved hand, a teacup. Of course a teacup.
The White Rabbit stands beside the Hatter, a perfect contrast. Where the Hatter is warm, ornamented, blushing, the Rabbit is cool, composed, and a little anxious. His coat is deep navy over a soft sage waistcoat, with mother-of-pearl buttons and breeches tied at the knee with little turquoise bows. A tall black silk top hat sits between his long, alert ears, trimmed with a blue feather. His face is creamy white porcelain, his pink nose lifted slightly, his blue-rimmed eyes wide with that constant, gentle panic of a creature who is always almost late.
In his paws, he holds his pocket watch. Round, gold-rimmed, the dial pale and luminous, the golden hands frozen at the moment that has haunted readers for over a century. There is no time and there is too much time. The Rabbit knows.
Together, they are the heart of Wonderland. The Hatter, dreaming sideways out of any fixed self. The Rabbit, running through the dream with his watch held close to his chest. One has lost time entirely; the other carries it everywhere. Between them, they cover the whole strange territory of the book.
A note on the form
Although they are shown here standing on improvised pedestals, these are not standing sculptures. They are bell dolls. Hollow ceramic figures in the bell-shaped tradition that has carried my name in the ceramic scene for decades. Each one is meant to hang, to chime softly, to sway when the air moves. The tiny ribbons at the top of the Hatter's hat are not decoration alone; they are the loop by which she lifts off the shelf and into the air.
For these photographs I improvised what I had on hand, a smartphone stand, a jewelry stand, whatever could hold them upright long enough to catch the light. You may do the same when they arrive, or you may hang them as they were made to be hung, where they will move and ring with the room. The stands you see in the pictures stay with me. Only the dolls travel to you.
They are sold as a pair.

Materials used:

clay, engobe, glaze

Details:

• Clay sculpture on Other
• One of a kind artwork
• Size: 25 x 33 x 12cm / 22 x 33cm (actual image size)
• Ready to hang
• Signed on the back
• Style: Expressive and gestural
• Subject: People and portraits

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