UBB.threads Forums Edged Weapons Hunting, Forestry, and Shooting Forum A wide variety of subjects...

Gentlemen,

As our own Ralph Cashi mentioned in a recent thread, there are many colorful aspects of collecting hunting and forestry related items. Similar to collecting Heer, Luftwaffe, SA and SS pieces, there are flags, armbands, medals and awards and uniforms as well as the many, many very handsome edged weapons.

There’s one small area I’d like to share with the forum, some of my porcelain hunting animals. I’m sure many of you are familiar with the beautiful works that were manufactured by the Allach Porzellan Fabrik during the Third Reich era? One of their premier sculptors produced some of the finest animal sculptures in Germany, beginning around the turn of the century and ending when he died in 1966. Professor Theodor Kaerner’s work is much sought after today and porcelain collectors across the world are keen to add his pieces to their collections. A well placed porcelain or two will most certainly add some zest to your ‘Rustkammer,’ or hunting and forestry collecting room. There are many superb examples that are either pre-or-post 1935-45, (look for Nymphenburg, Rosenthal and Eschenbach) and you won’t have to remortgage the house to acquire a nice one. (compared to Allach these are very reasonable) The quality of these earlier and later examples can be truly astounding for a fraction of the cost, but you must train your eye as a few instances can be a bit on the “kitchy” side.

The work below is one of the Professor’s designs that he produced just before being snapped up by Himmler for the Allach factory. This is a Damhirsch or Fallow-deer, not to be confused with the mostly larger Hirsch, or Red-deer. The easiest way to tell the difference between the two species is by the horns. The Hirsch’s horns are not as flattened or palmated as the Damhirsch antlers. It’s also not uncommon to find an all-white Damhirsch in the wild, however, hunters are loath to shoot the magnificent beasts because the legend says that the hunter who kills one of these spectacular animals is soon to die!

Best regards!

Bill Warda

2/2

Bill: Very interesting stuff here. And thanks for sharing.

BTW: I trade you my beloved Blue Max for the Honkong Campaign.

Fantastic porcelain pieces.
Where in the world do you find all these beauties ? I spend hours, just looking around the web for those porcelains and I never can find any of them.
Congratulation on a gorgeous piece of art.

Funny you should mention Rosenthal China. This area represents my biggest mistake in collecting Third Reich items.
In the early 1970s, I ran into a veteran with one dagger: NSKK Man's in mint condition. I was overjoyed and bought it.
When I visited his home, I found out he was a chaplain with the 45th Division and had some other items, one was the Allach piece of the 1700s Soldier with rifle and sword and I bought it for $45.00.
At this time I was just out of Pharmacy school and didn't have much money. The veteran was older and was retiring and moving and wanted to move some items.
Then the real bargain was offered to me. He had 45 pieces of Rosenthal with the original catalogs. Some of the piece were very large (to include a table center piece that was approximately three foot long and very detailed).
I asked him how he got all this and he told me that he had stayed in the Rosenthal home in Germany during the occupation and had taken them from the home and was able to ship them because of his position with the division.
He even was a friend of the family and the Rosenthal daughter had posed for some of the pieces.
SINCE THEY WEREN'T MILITARY OR THIRD REICH, I passed them up. What a mistake!!
Ron Weinand
Weinand Militaria

BIll

Very nice indeed!

Breathtaking!

Ron

Good story!

PVON

A great example Bill of what can be collected on a budget. Looks like Allach, feels like Allach, is as good as Allach but is the price that most collectors could afford if so desired. Here's my little deer, a Nymphenburg piece by Theodore Kärner.This little baby fits nicely into your hand.

Gary

Sorry about the pictures, they look great on my screen but whenever I upload them onto this site they seem to blur.

Gary

Bill, Gary
Beautiful pieces of fine porcellan. I could'nt agree more, there are so many different items of interest to collect. When it comes to art, it's boundless.

This isn't porcelain, but it is Deer antler. I call it "The Dealers Convention" That's a money tree of course.

Oh boy! We could have fun with this one.

.

Mikee,

Gadzooks, trumped again on my own thread!!!
In a word, unbelieveable... I'll have to digest this one and get back to you... keep 'em coming kid...

Best!

W~

Gents,

Thank you all for the kind words, I’m glad you enjoyed the professor’s Damhirsch.

Ron, in a word, damn! Hopefully, experiences like that are valuable lessons for us collectors… sometimes we quickly dismiss things that we’re unfamiliar with in our own specialized fields, resulting in missed chances - we’re all probably guilty of that! I guess you could say that going out on a limb sometimes pays off handsomely in some very sweet fruit?

A similar horror story for your amusement… as a kid I was given my uncle’s cased Picklehaube by my aunt, simply because I showed an interest in military things. It was a beauty all right, to include the long screw-in post with the red horse-hair parade brush. The whole kit and caboodle was in pristine condition too…

During my second semester at college I was confronted with a book bill for several hundred dollars and ended up selling the set so that I could continue with my studies, duh!
…now, every time I pass a display of elegant spiked helmets at a show I get a regret-filled twinge thinking about my own stupidity, ha! live and learn, eh?

Now something for the eye, a rearing stallion by Nymphenburg sculptor, A.Goehring…

Best regards!

Bill

Gentlemen,

I commend you on having both taste and luck, these pieces are indeed things of beauty. I really hate threads like this though, they serve only to pique my interest in yet another area to drain my already strapped resources.

Much of the militaria we collect is susceptible to a variety damage and would likely not survive another generation were we not to take proper precautions. But these items however are even more delicate. All it would take to shatter a life's collection would be a clumsy relative, a weak shelf or even a tremor for our West Coast brothers. It makes me sudder to think of the endless possibilities for breakage. Add to that the fact I'm a klutz. With a sigh I say it's probably best I admire these pieces from afar.

Here's something different, just came in from Germany yesterday.Overall size 15" by 12" Pewter plaque measuring 12" by 8" in the original oak frame.

Gary

2

Bill, Gary,
I truly admire your eye for art.

Two more for ya. Very old stained glass pictures to make a window look a bit nicer. They are fragile and probably need a little touching up. Thanks for looking.

Sorry, quick picture, hands are always getting in the way. Enjoy.

Looks like "men in tights"....

Billy G.,

Gary and I will soon have you trading in all your nice daggers for some hunting and forestry stuff... you're getting sleeepy, very sleeepy...

Gary, isn't that the great plaque that's featured in
the Johnson/Wittmann imperial book? I've looked at a few of these relief-casts and this is undoubtedly one of the best!

Mikee, the horn sculpture reminds me of Franz Liszt'
Totentanz or Danse Macabre. This must've been a fairly common motif by European artists of all kinds. The two pieces of stained glass are the first hunting-related types that I've ever seen and are really nice. (understatement)

Gents, thanks for the great additions to this thread!

Bill

Bill, Well spotted this is the piece pictured in the Imperial volume Pg 268.

Thanks

Gary

You guys have some of the most unique pieces, I wonder where you even find them, especially these carved items, I love porcelain and this is no secret, but some of these other items I find very attractive.

Im gonna have to start looking closer for these type items.

Nice items!!!

Kris

All items shown are really nice!

Congratulations to all for sharing
these items!

PVON

As is Theodor Kärner's Porzellan art is very much sought after, so are his great works of fabulous oil paintings, which I believe are extremely rare. Although the style of the period is seen in his work, as noted above he truely had a style all his own particularly with wild animals. That says something when most of the well known Porzellan factories desired his work.

I hope you all will enjoy this painting as much as I do. Here's an example I recently own of an oil by Karner. It's a nicely done painting of a hunter on horse back sounding his horn, alerting other hunters that the stag has been brought down by his hunting dogs. I love the detail of the horse which is magnificent. Each of his paintings are truly unique and if you have an oil, please post it. I sure would like to see other oils by Karner.
Would the abbreviation Mch. behind his signature be Munich?
Thanks for looking and enjoy.

Sorry for the poor quality pics.

Hey Gary ,you have the holy Hubertus .

Mikee,

I recently saw a print of the professor's finished study of a bellowing Hirsch, which I believe could be dated to his Allach sculpture, though, I'm not certain on that..? The painting was a fantastic work - some might think it even better than the porcelain! Up until recently I wasn't aware of Kaerner's ability to jump back and forth between the two mediums so effortlessly, the true renaissance man...

Unfortunately, due to computer problems the file was lost, hopefully we can find some other images. Once you get to know some of his sculptures and compare them to his paintings, you can immediately see the design jump right out at you, that's a good point you made.

Many thanks for sharing your wonderful painting with us Mikee, a very rare treat indeed!

Best!

Bill

Bill,

Thanks, Took your gracious advice and found this stunning Damhirsch.

And along the way picked up two nice cutters. Enjoy and thanks for looking.

Dear Bill,
I would like to add my porcelain of the stag being pulled down by the hounds to your post. This is the only porcelain I have with a stag but I have others of the hounds fighting the old boar hogs in porcelain and quite a few bronzes of the hounds fighting boar hogs. Behind this type of collecting goes a family life of hunting hogs with hounds. When I got married I was introduced to deer and hog hunting by my wife’s family. Her grandfather had the hog rights on 20,000 acres. It was not long until I had my own hound dogs and thus had my life planted into Florida hunting.

Photograph # 2 of hogs and stage. Front View

Photograph # 3 of dogs and stag. Lower side view.

Photograph # 4 bottom of porcelain. It has three faint 222's and a 9. in blue and I cannot make out the top blue marking. I do not know what they mean.

Thanks again for the Porcelain Post Bill. All of these things that favor hunting make collecting a great hobby.
Sincerely, HUBERTUS

Mikee

Two beautiful cigar cutters, lets have some more pictures please.
Ralph,
Can't help you I'm afraid but it's one super piece of porcelain.

Thanks

Gary

Mikee,

Your painted Kärner is a first-class beauty. I'm really glad that I could inspire you to acquire one for your collection and I hope you'll find more porcelains that tickle your fancy.

You've also gotten Gary worked into a lather with those two great cigar cutters! Good to see that you've been finding so many nice things.

Ralph,

Now that's an impressive Hirsch scene, very nicely done. I haven't got a nice scene with the dogs hard at work catching dinner, but I have this 1909 - 1910 sculpture by Theo Kärner
that illustrates an ermine in a life-and-death struggle with a partridge. In German it's named,
Hermelin mit einem Rebhuhn.

Thanks for sharing all the goodies. Glad to be able to add one myself...


Best regards to everyone!

Bill

Ralph,

Didn't mean to forget... I'm not sure of the maker mark. The others are most certainly model and catalog numbers.

R.E. Stag with dogs:
Is that possibly a blurred example of the Meissen crossed swords mark?
Jim

Ralph,
Very very nice! ,understatement. I'm no expert on porcelain marks by any means, but that mark looks like one of the Sitzendorf marks from Thuringin. Here's their website for you. www.sitzendorf-porzellan.de Send them a few pictures of this gorgeous piece, I'm sure they can help. Thanks for the rare treat Ralph and good luck.
I'm with Gary, please show some pictures from your other porcelain and bronzes.

Bill, Wow!

I've not seen that one before. Now where in the heck did you find that? I see I'm going to have to hunt a little harder. Two rare treats in a day. Now, you and Ralph have me worked into a lather.

Mikee
If you want to see some of the bronze boars please check out my web page.. http://www.cashi.com/phots.htm
It has a few of the scattered in with the pictures of the Hirschfangers.