Here's another installment of Collections within My Collection. Today we are looking at my Chevals.
Cheval horses come from South Africa and are home-produced by Johnny and Diana DeBeer in Botha's Hill. The business began as a hobby outlet for Johnny's sculpting and the company grew from there.
Now in his 80s, Johnny is focusing more on cattle although he still produces horses. Many of the new pieces are a larger scale than traditional scale Breyers but not as big as the 1:6 Marx Johnny West pieces.
The Friesian mold is highly popular with collectors and with good reason - it is stunning.
Johnny signs and dates his models. (His first name is Matthew, hence the M.)
I also have the Friesian mold in chestnut pinto
(a better view of how Johnny signs them)
and in black pinto. All three of these models do well in shows for me.
The black Friesian has two Top Tens from NAN and the chestnut pinto won Reserve Grand Champion Other Countryware in Breakables 2020.
This is the Quarter Horse mold done in Appaloosa.
I love the layering of colors in its spots.
In more recent years, Johnny began calling the business "Nguni" instead of "Cheval."
The spaghetti-maned comical ponies (middle model) are early pieces from the company, and this one and the same pony in black were my first Chevals. This mold is called "Joyful Jake."
The foal is also a very early piece and the three of them
all bear early gold Cheval stickers.
Not only did Johnny change the name of the company to Nguni Ceramics, he began focusing on sculpting cattle and some larger horses. While the cattle are beautiful, it's the horses that interest me.
Of course I got an Appaloosa-patterned one of the newer large pieces.
Here it is next to a Traditional scale Breyer (Cryptic on the Big Ben mold.)
Mane detail.
The Thoroughbred mold in a pretty dapple grey.
It's belly mark has it listed as Cheval but it is dated in 2022.
They do a nice job painting manes with fine tendrils rather than broad brush strokes.
Because of their height, it is a bit hard to find shelves for the Nguni era pieces. My curio in the living room will hold them but it is very full. Some day I will get around to rearranging it so these can be put inside.
In the meantime, keep your eyes open when I show photos from the sewing room - both of the biggies are in there and standing on top of the Freeman Leidy cabinet. (No room in there for them either!)
If you order, your piece will come from South Africa, but my experience with Johnny (5 orders in the past) has been highly positive. He knows how to pack for the long distance across the world and he is very responsive to emails if you need to communicate.
Off to go choose my newest Cheval!
