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.
