The Falconer & The Fisherman

As bewildering as it may be, partner Joe has taken on the long-threatened task of cleaning out the attic. I'm proud of his effort because Joe doesn't part with things easily. There's not a scrap of bubble wrap on its way to the garbage can that he hasn't snatched from my hands and scurried down to the basement where his model train area is. For some reason, though, at least once a week he brings a box or two down that's "my" stuff to go through and do something with. It's mostly things packed away 15 years ago from our old Victorian home in Keene. Despite another task being thrust at me, it's kind of enjoyable revisiting the framed photos and various knickknacks from a different era of my life. This weekend, I pulled out these two statues from a box. Heavy and about 18" tall, they sat for many years in the big hallway of the house on a sideboard. One is a man with a bird aloft in one reaching hand and the other is a man with a catch of fish dangling from his spear. Both are dressed in Renaissance style and stand on iron pedestals. Despite needing frequent dusting, they looked great in front of the cabinets mirror. Could I make them work here in my oh-so contemporary '80s house in Dublin? Probably. But do I want to? Thinking it was maybe time to sell them, I used good old Google lens to help me identify these regal men. It turns out that what we have here is an example of statuary spelter. Despite my hoping they were crafted of bronze, they're spelter which is a much less expensive and easier to use zinc alloy. These lads were probably produced in the late 1800s or early 1900s. During the Victorian period, there was a great love for historical revival and ornate decoration according to Wikipedia. Clockmakers during the Victorian era frequently used this style of figure to adorn their mantle clocks. This pair are stand-alone and known as side statues. They were probably produced by the Ansonia Clock Company, an American company of the period. The quality and the detail is quite good and I wondered who originally sculpted them. It turns out there has been many sculpted versions of The Falconer and The Fisherman. It's likely these were styled after much larger, original pieces. For decorative manufacturing purposes, any number of artists may have created their own versions and when you do an online image search, the results will produce numerous different examples. I wondered about value next. Knowing they weren't made of precious metal and that fussy, ornate style is far less appreciated than it used to be, I thought $75 apiece would be reasonable. I'd probably paid around $75 for the pair at auction many years ago. Looking online, though, you'd think I had an original Michelangelo or something. I'm kidding but I was a tad surprised. Hitiques.com had the pair for $600; Worth Point estimated $100 to $300 for the pair but to find out what they actually sold for, you had to buy a membership. eBay had a lot of similar spelter statues priced from $65 to $295 for individual pieces. Checking prices online can be misleading though when it comes to realistically pricing antiques. Just because a piece is listed for $400, that doesn't mean it's going to sell for that. A friend showed me a more accurate way to gauge pricing by going into a site's history of what previous pieces have sold for. On eBay, I did an advanced search for "Ansonia spelter statues" and then clicked on "sold" and "completed." Sold prices were all over the place, though. A gladiator sold for $20 and a pair of spelter side statues (similar to mine but depicting Renaissance women) sold for $1,299! I guess the statement is true that something is only as valuable as the market will bear. I'll probably just stick with my gut feeling regarding pricing the pair if not a tad cheaper. I like items to sell quickly, not sit around for months like a museum piece.