Cowgirls & Cowboys - Three Generationss

My daughter-in-love, Vanessa, sent me this video of Lukie enjoying the wooden rocking horse that we gave their family last Christmas.

He's the third generation of rocking horse cowboys and cowgirls in our family.

One of my earliest memories is of riding one very similar to this wooden rocking horse.

 Ours was almost all red and aptly (if unimaginatively) named Reddy. I spent hours in Reddy's saddle!

I outgrew Reddy and moved on to Buttermilk. (This was in the early 1960s and Dale Evans and her horse, Buttermilk, were quite popular.)

Like Reddy, I spent countless hours riding Buttermilk, and although I shared her with my brother and sister, no one rode her as much as I did. You could bounce up and down or you could rock back and forth like I had on Reddy. (Funny thing, all these years later I still like motion when I am sitting - give me a rocking chair any day!)

Having known the joys of rocking horse-dom, I made sure that my children had the same opportunity to ride the horse of their dreams when they were children.

(Photo from Google Images.)

Santa brought this horse, Lightning, for Christmas when our two oldest were toddlers. They both loved it, but it was Jessica who, like me, was constantly in the saddle. (Somewhere I have the cutest picture of her cuddled up on the floor underneath Lightning, sound asleep.) But Jessica outgrew her horsiness just as she outgrew Lightning.

I have fifteen grandchildren and one more due in June, so surely SOMEONE will be a horse lover like their Grammy. So far Mila and Cambria seem the most likely candidates, but you never know - there may be a sleeper in the family somewhere!

Mortens Studio Horses

Yesterday I pulled out my Mortens Studio horses - there are four of them.

You can see four different scales in this photo. Sometimes the same horse (the grey, for example) was done in several scales. You can see some in the late Karen Grimm's collection here.

 My bay Rearing Horse is flawless. He has no metal showing, no chips, cracks, or crazing.

He is the only Mortens Studio that I have seen without damage. As you might imagine, I treat him with a great deal of caution and do not handle him much.

Mortens are known for their "headlight" eyes; the sculptor put them close together on the foreheads of the horses instead of more on the sides where they should be. Many also have lip liner that gives them a bit of a cartoony smile.

 The bottom of the hooves are painted in a thick grey paint (in this case, a little sloppily)

 and all four of mine have grey striped hooves.

All of mine also have the round copyright sticker, a surprise since stickers so often are removed by owners. The bay was my first Mortens Studio piece, found over two decades ago in a now defunct tiny antique shop in Pesotum, Illinois.

My smallest Mortens piece is the grey Mustang. (These are my names for them; I have not come across any mold names in my research.)

 You can see the lipliner that he sports (I think he's really cute)

 and he also has the old green sticker that says. "Royal Design by Mortens Studio."

Under the belly is the copyright sticker. You can also see that thick grey paint on the bottom of his hooves.

 It is hard to see in photographs, but this piece has a crack above his eyes. It's not crazing, it's a crack in the plaster.

The plaster has worn off his eartips, too, and the metal is beginning to peek out.

 You can really see the metal on the Hackney's ears.

 He has the striped hooves that the other three have.

 Sadly, this piece has some pretty advanced cracks on his off side.

 A better look at the cracks and the ears.

 There's also a crack on his belly to the left of the copyright sticker. (The white line.)

And he has an unusual round spot on his tail. It's a place where the paint and overglaze have flaked off, exposing the plaster underneath.

The black Thoroughbred was the hardest to photograph of them all as he was so shiny. The only actual damage in the above photo are the two tiny white spots on his barrel - the rest is all glare.

Striped hooves.

 The off side. Again, that is glare, not damage.

 His eartips are another story, though. The metal is showing on both of them.

 Headlight eyes.

 The copyright sticker. (I keep wondering why they all still have those stickers. As old as they are, chances are good that they would've been removed long ago.)

So that's a look at the Mortens Studio horses, dogs, and cat that I have in my collection. I like Mortens Studio pieces a lot, but like most hobbyists,  I do not actively seek them out.  If I do find one, you can bet that I will snap it up and bring it home. They are lovely in their own way, and with the deterioration that most are undergoing, there may not be many around in a few years.

Best to snag them and try to preserve them while they can still be found.

New Hagen Renaker Cartoon Horse/Samson

Hagen Renaker has dusted off the old Disney Sampson mold and made a new horse that hobbyists have dubbed, the Cartoon Horse.

 I got mine from Heather Wells of The Horse You Want in California.

I'll admit that I am a little disappointed - the paint job Hagen Renaker is putting on these pieces is not up to their usual quality. I've looked at several examples of the Cartoon Horse, and they all look as though not much attention was paid to the paint job. Look at the breastband and band that goes around the haunches - they're scalloped but painted with straight brush strokes. (And the painter did an oopsie and went off the bands and onto the body of the horse on my piece, too.)

 Having said that, I am still happy to have him in my collection.

 Currently I have him lying on his side - those legs are so spindly, I am afraid I will break one.

My hope is that Hagen Renaker will produce more of the Cartoon Horse in different colors, and that the paint jobs will be better executed.

I haven't gotten my Mortens Studio horses out yet - hopefully they will be featured in the blog tomorrow.

Mortens Studio Dogs

Just as I don't collect bridle rosettes, or old classic books, or early teacher's pedagogy books (HAH!), I don't collect dogs. But... I have been know to purchase dogs when I come across them in my outings to look for HSOs. (Horse shaped objects.)

That's how I ended up bringing these two pretty Mortens Studio dogs home.

This is the Mortens Studio Collie. Like most Mortens, he has a little damage to an ear, the tip of his nose, and a little scuffing on his paws.

But when you consider his age and the material of which he's made, he is in terrific shape, especially for a Mortens Studio piece. These photos make him look lighter than he is.

It's actually nearly identical to the cat, which is why the cat my eye in the first place. I knew that color!

I am also lucky to have found this wonderful old Dalmatian.  He looks to me like he is yearning for someone to pet him.

Mortens came with stickers or with an ink stamp on the bottom like this one to identify them. 

His spots have been applied by hand and are quite randomly shaped and placed. He even has spots under his belly, too.

It is highly unusual to find a Mortens Studio piece as undamaged as this one is. He's a little dirty, but I don't dare wash him since I would be afraid that the water might destroy some of the plaster. I can live with the dirt.

Tomorrow I will share the Mortens Studio horses that are in my collection.

A Mortens Studio Find

Oscar Mortens, who was originally from Sweden, had an art studio in Chicago from 1931 to the 1950s. (One online source says the company began in the 1940s, but William Thomas, who was friends with Inge Thelin, whose husband, Gunnar, worker for Oscar Mortens, says the company began in 1931. Go here for that information.)

The pieces that were produced were figurines of plaster layered over a metal frame. They were beautiful but not durable - it is very difficult to find a Mortens Studio piece without some damage to its plaster outer coating.

 Last Saturday my daughter and I went antiquing together. She was looking for red transferware and moon and stars glassware while I was looking for horses. (We make a good team - Lisa has found things that I missed and vice versa.)

I spied this small cat sitting on a shelf in a corner. Actually, it was the COLOR of the cat that caught my attention - I have a Mortens Studio collie in the same butterscotch and orange.

I have some Mortens Studio horses and two dogs, but I had never seen a cat before. Still, the color was just like my collie.

A quick search on my phone showed that there are a few Mortens Studio cats, but certainly not as many as there are dogs and horses.

 With very minimal damage to her ears and for only fifty cents, she came home with me.

If I can, I will pull out my Mortens Studio horses and dogs and do a couple of more posts about them tomorrow or Friday. They're interesting pieces to look at and very collectible in their own way.

Stay tuned!

A Sunshiny Morning with the Herd

It's getting warmer and the horses are loving the sunshine.

Today, Trouble decided to roll in the mud spa, but luckily the ground is drying out and so he didn't get too filthy.

Abby enjoyed her peppermints, a bit of a scratch, and the sun while we chatted.

Sultanna always wants to be where Abby is, so I snapped a selfie with her. She has such a pretty coat color, even when it's her shaggy winter coat.

Good old Hokey was up for a visit, too, so I got a photo of the two of us. (Next to Abby, he is my favorite of all the horses.)

Trouble was too busy rolling and Diablo didn't want to cooperate, so I didn't get them.

 I did get a photo of Sultanna copying Abby and licking the bars of the gate, something that Abby has been doing since I got her nearly seven years ago despite having access at all times to salt and mineral blocks.

She only does it after I give her a treat; sometimes apple or pear juice drips from my hand and onto the bars of the gate, so she always licks them, just in case. (She always licks my hand, too.)

Abby has been enjoying the mud spa, too; looks like I need to give her a good brushing. I may do that tomorrow when I go see her.

New Circus Ponies!

I added two new Hagen Renaker circus ponies to my collection. I'm super excited to have found them.

 The new head-up pony has a dark pink harness.

 I'd even call it magenta.

 Here it is compared to the lightest of my head-up ponies - quite a difference.

 You can see it even better in this photo.

Now it is on the left while the lightest one is on the right. (The lightest one is from Nancy Falzone's collection and has exceptional shading.)

 I also got a head-down pony with yellow harness.

 His shading is pretty unremarkable when you compare him to the one I already have.

I am delighted to add both of these pieces to my collection. I now have eleven Hagen Renakers and eleven of the Hagen Renaker copies. And I'm still looking for more.