ART DECO RARE CAR MASCOT, BY M. PODIE BRAD, BRONZE 1925

ART DECO RARE BRONZE CAR MASCOT BY M. PODIE BRAD, 1925, from Bonhams.
Also the motometer is made of bronze and
the dogbone base is bronze & underneath the base made of Spelter.
All pieces are nickel plated.

I think in all my years of collecting I have only seen this piece offered twice. A very art deco example with an engineered base. This car mascot was on my site first in 2012, years ago, but I restarted my site about 6-7 years ago on CW. I love M. Podie Brad's work and I have "Egyptienne" another of PodieBrad's work which was my first pick. The base for that one I had made in a heavy metal about 7 or 8 years ago, copying the base for this one.

A lot of mascots in those early years of the twenties still used a motometer on the car so they were made for a bolt to hold them on to the car. From the piece which is like a small 1/2 inch donut which is attached to a car or display base with a longer screw bolt they are coming forth sideways with a statuette, and usually always were made to hold a motometer, hence the complication and yet simplicity. They are wonderful and especially used on French mascots, some British, yet very few American mascots . A lot of the rarest of mascots came with these and sometimes produce or put forth the most amazing of car mascots. I love them especially when they come with a motometer as some of those French rascals are so rare. They amazingly never really threw ANY away when they were bent too low to put on a motometer as I find too many with this flaw and they would be too difficult to bend by hand as they would snap. This example is THE full package with a motometer and the winged pilot coming forward with his airplane set on a dogbone raised base !!~

There is also a lot of books on mascots including French mascots. I own quite a big collection of books over the years and got to know all of the best writers of Mascot books, and some of those authors have hundreds of examples. I noticed that most of the holes of this attachment in one book are marked with the sculptors name including some famous names in French Sculptors. A lot of the rarest of mascots use this base. The name is on the side of the 1/2 inch circle base as this example is which is quite hard to do, so I find no reproductions copy the name in this manor. That is one excellent fact of this hobby. I remember some idiot asking me about this and thinking the signature might be a reproduction. I would find it hard to even think that someone nowadays would use something hard to produce just for a repro, but those people know nothing and so many try to sell new mascots and always put vintage in their ad. Also there is rare literature such as period catalogs which there are really no fakes of that. One book show mascots with some literature such as original ads. I also own a catalog with examples of mascot and other rare auto parts for long passed car owners and they made BIG catalogs. The catalog in my collection is quite rare as no other collector owns that particular one that I found in an auction once by that maker. Hundreds of mascots were made for no car in particular and hundreds of countless subjects !~

The last time I saw this piece offered for sale was at the famed Pascalle Giordano's sale more than several years back, and at that sale in France I only bought the awesome example "Egyptienne" and 5 other mascots, although I saw an example of this and one other mascot of a skier by PodieBrad. There really is nothing known about M. Podie Brad as a sculptor or artist, although I have just seen his work as a sculptor of mascots working about 1925 in France !~