Hmmmmm. Look what came across my Instagram feed! Twice. Thursday and Friday both.
That's a Breyer Family Arabian Stallion (FAS) that Pottery Barn is using.
Vintage Club Ali, one of the FASs in my collection.
Curious to learn more about this piece, I went to Pottery Barn's web site and easily found the lamp.
Pottery Barn wants $179 for it. That's a lot of money, especially for a copy that has lost much of the refinement of the original piece and looks rather clunky to me.
The mane on the lamp horse has been switched to the near side of the piece.
It's on the off side for the real FAS.
My Breyer belly-band Appaloosa FAS.
But, Breyer did the same thing early in the company's history - they copied Hagen Renaker's Zara and Zilla (the mare and foal accompanying Amir) and then designed the stallion after Amir in the 1950s. Hagen Renaker filed a lawsuit against Breyer and won. (Breyer also copied Hartland's Western Horse.)
All that was over 70 years ago and a lot has changed since then. Pottery Barn is a large, well known company and I would think that it paid Breyer for the rights to use the FAS mold or a copy that is so obviously based on it.
If so, it would be fun if there were a Proud Arabian or Family Arabian Mare lamp that is offered, too. Or, to see if this is indeed an unauthorized copy of Breyer's FAS and if the lamp ends up being pulled from the market as a result.
Stay 'tooned, that's for sure!
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