Collections Within My Collection: Mortens Studio Dogs & Cats

I don't collect dogs but I have been know to purchase them during my outings to look for HSOs.  That's how I ended up bringing some of these pretty Mortens Studio pieces home.

This Mortens Studio Collie was my first Mortens dog. 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. 

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 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.

 Our first dog as a family was a beautiful Springer Spaniel named Duffy. 

Duffy was a wonderful boy and we had him fifteen years. 

So, is it any wonder that when a hobbyist offered a bunch of Mortens Studio dogs in excellent condition that I quickly snagged the Springer Spaniel?

I have about 15 Mortens horses, dogs, and cats and none of them are in as good of shape as this one.

 I can't find a flaw on him.

Whoever owned that small collection of Mortens dogs clearly took good care of them and I wish I could tell them that this particular piece is in good hands and will be well cared for.

In 2019, a surprise box arrived from friend and fellow collector Nancy Kelly. Inside? 

Three Mortens Studio puppies!

 

Mortens made a variety of sizes, and this is the large Sitting Boxer puppy.

 

 

He's in remarkable shape for a Mortens Studio.

 

The large Irish Setter puppy was also in the box.

 

Like the Boxer, he, too, is in excellent shape. (I love his sweet little eyes!)

The large Collie pup has had a bit of a rough life, but he will find a happy home with my adult Collie.

 

He's painted in my favorite Mortens' color - butterscotch and cream.

His underside is unpainted plaster with the Mortens Studio stamp on top.

The underside of the Irish Setter has been painted like the hoof bottoms of my Mortens Studio horses. The paint is very thick.

The Boxer's underside is curious - was the paint added after the stamp? Or was the stamp added after the paint and faded over time? It's hard to tell, but I think its the latter. See those two places where the brown paint has chipped off, exposing the base? The stamp has chipped off in those areas, too. If it were on the base and then painted over, you should still see the stamp under the chips.

(Nancy, I still enjoy having these puppies in my collection!)

From another source (and one that I cannot remember)

is this playful Mortens Studio Boxer pup.

That hole in the base gives an unusual look inside the piece.

I spied this small cat sitting on a shelf in a corner of an antique shop. Actually, it was the COLOR of the cat that caught my attention - the same butterscotch and cream as my Mortens Studio Collie.

Never had I seen a Mortens Studio cat before.

Further research 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.

As I compare the dogs and cat to the horses and look at their damage, I wonder why no metal armature shows where the plaster has come off.

The Collie pup is a great example of that - the ears are damaged and half a leg is gone, but there is no metal in sight.

My theory is that maybe only the horses have the metal inside - their legs and ears are thinner and more fragile than the thicker dogs' and cats'. 

A close-up of the metal ears on my Mortens Hackney.

And, the horses are heavier than the dogs or cat, lending credence to the fact that there is a metal armature inside them.

I may have a theory but there is no way to test it unless I find a Mortens dog or cat in such poor shape that I wouldn't mind breaking it open and looking inside. 

If any of you have any thoughts or information about whether or not the Mortens dogs and cats have metal inside them, I'd love to hear from you.(horsiemama8@gmail.com)

Tomorrow we will look at another collection within my collection. Stay 'tooned!

Collections Within My Collection: Mortens Studio (Part 1)

In 2025 I began a blog series titled, "Collections within My Collection." I made a list of 33 sub collections and wrote about ten of those before I stopped in June. I meant to continue; I just never got back to the topic.

Well, today is the day the series returns and I am going to begin by sharing my Mortens Studio horses. 

First, a little about the studio.

Oscar Mortens, who was originally from Sweden and 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. They are extremely fragile.

They aren't chinas but I have seen them (and shown them) a couple of times in the china division of a few shows. There really isn't a division for them unless it is simply one for Mortens or for collectibility.

In my collection are four Mortens Studio horses.

You can see four different scales in this photo. Sometimes the same horse (the grey, for example) was done in several scales. 

 

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

He is the only Mortens Studio horse 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 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.

Tomorrow we will look at the Mortens dogs and cat in my collection.

Stay 'tooned!