Dear Forum Members,

I've just joined but have benefited from your collective wisdom and knowledge for some time now.
I live in So. California and grew up in Pasadena amongst Craftsman architecture and artwork. Recently, I found this piece at an antique mall, stuck in the corner of a showcase filled with LLadro figurines. The body is copper and the legs are bronze, it is 8 1/2" high. It is unmarked-- well, I should say I can't find any marks on it. Where do you folks think it was made? I vacillate between local workmanship and perhaps English? I look forward to your opinions.

Sincerely,

Oliver

Welcome to the forum! A very interesting piece and I suspect it is European. Perhaps Austrian or even Dutch. I cannot say I have ever seen one like it.

Best,

I agree with Fred, european but am curious about the detail work, looks a little amatuerish, not at all crisp. How are the legs attached to the copper body? There are no marks at all I guess, what do you suppose it was meant to function as or do you think it is purely decorative? My first impression was that it was an urn that might be missing a lid? Is the copper lightweight? Does the open at the top have a rolled lip?

Dano

The legs appear to be brazed on, there is no sign of riveting inside the body. I would guess its function was that of a vessel of some sort; it holds water and also shows the sort of patina which comes from moisture at the interior bottom. Perhaps it was a wine bucket. I wouldn't say it is lightweight, it is about 1 1/2 lbs. The opening does have a rolled lip, but it is rolled inward. There are none of the attendant wear signs to this inner rim that one would associate with a lid. As to the detail work, I'm not sure how you are defining "amateurish." It has been punched, repouseed and engraved, all of which techniques have been executed by a skilled hand. The motifs seem to be grasping for something, however-- they are not easily identifiable in and of themselves, nor are they precisely related to say, Native American, Central European Folk, or more common A&C motifs; this is the issue.

By amatuerish I mean not as finely done as we have seen by more skilled hands with many examples on this forum. It most likely is a stylized version of someone's design, just like Macintosh and Ellis, sometimes I find it hard to tell what they are trying to represent, sometimes if I look harder, I can see, "Oh yeah, that's a rose" but not always.

I meant no disrespect to the craftsman of this piece, it's still better than I could do!

Dano

I came across a Stickley copper piece on this terrific auction website:
http://www.craftsman-auctions....r_select.php&cat=533
I see what you mean by "amateurish" now, Mohawk. The first thought that came to mind was, Gee, this is Stickley? Shouldn't the work be better than this? But then this appears to depend on the individual craftsman, and perhaps even on the sort of day he was having when he made it. I guess this was the point of the whole movement, an expression of personal skill in a given medium.

Oliver