Bloom Service

Inspired by last month's excellent Naughton Gallery exhibition, I sought out my own little bit of Abram Games' brilliance on ebay. Issued in 1953 Conquest of the Desert was one of six stamps Games designed for Israel's Philatelic Department after he won a competition, a few years earlier, to design a special stamp commemorating Israel's Independence Day. The design was inspired by a Biblical quotation (Isaiah 35 verse 2), "The desert shall blossom as a rose". Cleverly, the stem of the rose is a surveyor's rod. At the time of issue, the stamp caused a bit of a stir; Games took the quote from the King James I English translation, in the original Hebrew the blossoming flower is a lily of the valley.