Gentlemen,
I wanted to say thanks to everyone for your support for this thread and kind comments - here's to all of you for adding so much great input and material, cheers!
Also a special word of thanks to "derjäger" - Joe G., for pinning our thread and always helping when I run into technical difficulties, which is normally quite often ... muchas gracias amigo!
Mikee - glad to see you back in town. It's always good to hear your take on things as you have a keen eye for all kinds of great goodies. I've got a small collection of photos that I'll be posting soon for your enjoyment and hopefully several others will approve of them, too ... heh. Some pictures of lovely pieces that I couldn't add to my collection for one reason or another - most, because of their prohibitive prices.
Tristan - no relationship to the Nymphenburg factory I'm afraid. I haven't found the logo for the company that Mikee mentioned yet, but when I do I'll post it. I don't think your SA rider is necessarily postwar. I've seen German bronzes and metal work run the gamut in quality, possibly so that the ordinary guy could afford something for his home or desk too? If you think about it for a moment, not everyone could afford Zeitner-quality gifts and baubles to present. There had to be lots of Spelterware and odd, inexpensive, alloy-type castings to be bought for the patriotic home, no? That's what I think this one is, not top-end but most likely an original period piece.
Herr Nolan - Sorry to hear that you ran into difficult times, I hope things are on an upward swing for you? Looking forward to seeing some photos of your dancers when you get some time. In that vein, figures that is, I'd like to start off posting one that most Allach collectors will surely recognize, the merry prankster, Til Eulenspiegel.
I recently found this beautiful Meissen rendering of the fairy-tale character on a German auction site. Methinks the quality of this example easily rivals that of anything produced by Allach. In my humble opinion even the pose and symbolism is slightly better than its Allach counterpart and I'll try to explain why ... in German the name Eulenspiegel literally means, "owl-mirror." Here the brilliant sculptor, Willi Münch-khe, has incorporated those two words into the work, as we can clearly see not only the owl, but also the hand-mirror in Til's grasp. A very subtle and clever way the artist identifies his subject without words, a very nice touch. With the Allach example the viewer only sees a figure and has no way of knowing exactly who the subject is, unless he/she posesses some knowledge of the Allach product line or catalogs and photographs. With Khe's example the keen eye just might pick up on the symbolism to identify the strange person in the jester's garb? Til may have been a jester but most often his pranks weren't funny at all and some were so nasty that they eventually hung the silly prat. ha!
I trust you all might enjoy this work as much as I do ...
Bis später, best!
W~
