A Metlox Mystery: More on the Ballerina

Yesterday I sat down and did some research on those Ceramic Arts ballerinas. I discovered that there are a lot of Ceramic Arts figurines on eBay, many of them, like my two, called "shelf sitters" due to the fact that they were created to perch on a shelf, a book, or something flat.

I did not find any complementary Ceramic Arts horses to go along with them; in fact, the only Ceramics Arts horse I found was so poorly sculpted, I think its seller was mistaken as to which company had made it.

The flat bottoms on the ballerinas, the positions of the hand (in the larger Ceramic Arts piece), plus the fact that I did not find any matching horses makes me pretty sure that the Ceramic Arts ballerinas are shelf sitters and not circus ballerinas. I just found two reference books on Ceramic Arts that I have added to my birthday list. Hopefully I will get one of them and be able to do more research to see if I find any more information.

As for the Metlox ballerina, I am now leaning toward it being a shelf sitter as well.

First, look at the position of her left hand - it's flat as though it were leaning against a flat surface. I cannot tell if her bottom is flat, but I suspect it is. If that's the case, then my guess is that this piece is also a shelf sitter and was not made to be a circus ballerina. 

I dug through my Metlox reference book to see if I could find out anything about the ballerina. When I did, I discovered something very interesting.

That ballerina perched atop the Metlox drafter does not appear anywhere in Metlox Potteries Identification and Values. The drafter does, but there is no indication that there ever was a rider for it.

Not only that, but Metlox only made a few shelf sitters, and almost all of those were part of  the Poppets and Toppets line that ran through the mid 60s and 70s. There is no ballerina among them and the style of those figurines is completely different from that of the ballerina.

I am now pretty convinced that the ballerina is not a Metlox creation. It's very possible that someone had the ballerina and put her onto the horse for fun, took a photo, and the photo began circulating on social media. That photo has inadvertently mislead people (like me) who assumed it must be a companion piece to the horse. 

Pursuing mysteries like this is one of the fun aspects of the hobby for me. I was very surprised to not find the ballerina in my book, but as I stepped back and thought about it, all I had to go on was that I had seen a photo and assumed that the ballerina went with the horse. How many times have I done the same thing - popped a rider onto a horse for fun and taken a picture?

Like this?

Or this?

Just as my Circus Girl doll did not come with my Steha-Leha Circus Horse, nonetheless you can find many pictures of the two of them together and might even get the wrong impression that they are companion pieces.

Just as I think I may have done with the so-called Metlox ballerina.

Stay 'tooned!