This time I want to show you two very old friends of mine.
The brass horse and baby elephant belonged to my grandmother. I remember playing with them as a child. In my imagination the little elephant was an orphan that had been adopted by the horse. I would let them walk all over my grandmother's place - which wasn't that big, mind you - and when they took a break, the baby would drink milk from the horse. Don't ask me why, I was the kid that used the little playing cards at my other grandparents' house like dolls, making them have conversations and go out (I loved the way the pictures looked). I had a lot of imagination and was able to play like that for hours sometimes.
Unfortunately they are not marked. I know they are not Walter Bosse because the style is more realistic. It just surprises me that so far I haven't been able to find them elsewhere or at least something in the same style because I'm convinced these figurines were just as popular in the 50s as the wonderfully whimsical Bosse pieces. Here's a cat that has to work hard in my kitchen holding towels and potholders, I think he's still surprised about that job ;-)
At a fleamarket about ten years ago I did find this cat. I suspect she is younger than my old friends because its surface looks rougher, but I fell in love with her elegant posture and the price was very sensible.
As you can see she is much bigger than horse and elephant, too, so I don't display them together. She usually has the job of holding my two wonderful memory necklaces of Merlin and Meffi, painted by my friend Dawn, while horse and elephant protect part of my personal library, safely behind glass.
Some time before my grandmother passed, she gave me the little elephant. A while later I saw the horse standing on my younger brother's book shelf. I couldn't bear to see them apart and practically begged him to give it to me. Luckily he not only had no sentimental connection to it at all, unlike myself, he also wasn't at an age to be interested in a figure like that. No worries, he still hasn't regretted giving it up ;-)
Whenever I see those two together now, I'm immediately taken back in time to my grandmother's flat. I see her TV chair, her record player, the table cloth with the tassels (something else I loved to play with), and the cupboard where they used to wait for me to take them down and play with them.
