Featured Grotesque yet amazing figurine,potties.

Hi all. Picked up this fabulous figure recently,and though hes clearly marked Im having the devil of a time finding his maker. Its 6 inches tall3 1/2 wide,and I find him simply beautiful! Ive named him Quasimodo. Any and all input is welcome,even if you think hes hideous.

 

He's great!

 

It's beautiful! Do you think it is folk art? I have a doubt whether "Shepherd" is the name of the maker or a title of the work.

 

That makes it hard to search without getting a bunch of shepherds, doesn't it? When I first saw it, I thought, "Arthritis." Kind of how I feel in the mornings.

 

This fellow is ivory described as having Potts disease. He reminded me of your guy slightly.

 

Perfect name for him, Johnny!

 

You type in "shepherd" and all you get is damn dogs! I like most everything I buy,or I wouldnt buy it,but I LOVE this guy. Hes a keeper for sure.Now if I could just get that "one thing in,one thing out" thing down !

 

Hi Johnny, I find it hard to come up with much as well.....I did find a Luke Shepherd,
https://luke-shepherd.com/_galleries/portrait-busts/
who does portrait sculptures, but that's about all......I suppose you could ask to see if maybe he did something like this in his early works! A long shot for sure.....I don't find it grotesque....just a fact of life, and interesting, as well as aptly named!!

 

In the 4th row on this page of items in the Wellcome collection there is a bust of a hunchback from antiquity. Linked to the whole page because of all the other interesting things. I find the strait jacket in the 2nd row particularly alarming.

 

What fascinating stuff! I went down the rabbit hole on that site for a while!

 

As a complete aside,as a very young child I was watching the 1939 version of Hunchback of Notre Dame ,and the part where Quasimodo was begging for water and people were being vicious to him affected me so much I burst into tears and was inconsolable! I truly believe thats when my penchant for giving and feeling for the downtrodden was formed. When I saw this fellow on the shelf,I immediately thought of that movie and got all verklempt in the thrift! Hence calling him Quasimodo.

 

I tend to find all of the "grave-robbing" of Egyptian mummies & corpses "in the name of science" quite a bit alarming....although the fantastic masks and (watch---I'll misspell this>>) sarcophagus' they dig up ARE amazing....BUT I digress...........I MUCH PREFER this WONDERFUL Backscratcher!!!!!!!!! I would carve it a new handle though!!!!!

 

Other way around, I think: if you had not sympathized with the downtrodden, the movie would not have affected you so.

 

Is this figure wearing some form of cap, or is that the hairline?
Johnny, can you take a close up of the arm on our left?

 

Nope,hes bald as a cue ball. I so appreciate all of yalls input.

 

Sorry, I meant left arm, but from the front.

 

Better?

 

Yes, thank you, I was trying to see if there were some markings there, not sigs, more like tribal, but it doesn’t look that way now.

 

I like it.