Posted 4 years ago
lambertkh
(39 items)
Small appx. 11 inches top to bottom metal "sculpture" or maybe "hood ornament" . Looks Art Deco period to me. Weight is appx. 1.6 pounds. Upraised let is broken exposing inside so looks like pot metal. Face is maybe ivory or another material with really nice detail. Foot bottom with I think name "Berman" or maybe it is German? Looks like the piece screwed into either a base of some sort or maybe a car hood ornament. Anybody with any ideas? Thanks much.
I have one nearly identical except for minor differences. I had removed my post of one of them but have still on this site my posts of similar girls which were done by H.B. Hirsch and co. back in the 1940's to 70's since they had a Bronze Foundry where they made theirs in Spelter metal as is yours. They had the original Moulds from Paris which was a real detective story. I am not sure if they made these as the main difference is the hats. Yours has a broken leg, is made of spelter and likely is similar to my posts, although when they were sold alone, they normally used a 3 inch piece of green onyx as the base. The info on most of my examples concerns the lamp Harold Berman attributed to Ignacio Gallo where the statue has a lamp attached to the rest of the leg where yours is broken. Nothing to do with a hood ornament.
Yours has a hand missing also which I was not sure if the metal hand ones had different parts for the hands, but I had guessed they did. They made the head and sometimes the hand out of ivorene which is a mix of plastic and glues. I assume now that they were made by a different company than the Hirsch one, whereas I was not sure before, although its still possible as Hirsch made it since he made some bigger lamps using alabaster lamp shades and peices.
Great information and Phil is a expert on these pieces so I believe you can mark this beauty solved :-)
So much great information more than I had hoped for. Thanks so much for your expertise Phil. Will mark as a solved mystery. Best to you.