Judy Jay's Time Dances By jjay@timedancesby.com
	Phone: 210-690-8454	Fax: 210-699-4492

JOKERS WILD ( Vintage Vienna Bronze Pug Dogs ): Aren’t these great looking “card sharks” – one with a stolid poker face and the other calmly smoking a long stem pipe with a glass of wine at hand? One rarely finds the old Vienna Bronzes in this kind of condition. Viennese Bronze artists started “humanizing” their small figurines in the early 20th Century and pugs, for obvious reasons to us, were a favorite subject. I do like, and own, some of the new Vienna Bronzes, but I want you to know – and notice – the difference. Look at the details in the molding of the hair on the back views of both of these pugs and compare it to that of a new one. (Some can be found on Page 2 of our “Pug Museum”.) The old ones were made in small, limited series (10-30). Each of the various works of art is a unique hand decorated object. In two that may look similar you can see that there are differences in such things as the positioning of the limbs, as well as in the decoration. Only the casting was done in common. The new ones are much more “mass produced”. It is usually easy to differentiate old from new by the molding and the bright acrylic paint used on the new – but “fake” old ones are being produced – so please beware. This piece dates from the early 20th Century and, as a bonus, bears the Fleur-de-Lis hallmark – one of the two used by Franz Bergmann, the most famous of Vienna Bronze sculptors. The impressed word is “Geschutz” meaning protected or patented. Condition: Excellent. Mild surface wear on pug backs, pipe bowl & sides of the table. The pipe stem is slightly bent. Size: 2” high, 3 1/4” wide, 1 1/2” deep. Pugs are 1 5/8” high.