Featured Please Help!

I need some help! I have scoured the internet for sevral years looking for a specific figurine to no avail. My grandfater told me about a cat figurine he has been searching for all his adult life and has never found. I have tried to help aid in that search and am also coming up empty handed. The figurine,as he describes it, is from the early 1900s. He thinks it's from the 1920s. It is a cobalt blue cat that is playing the cello (which is the cats body). Can anyone give me ANY information on this?

 

Hi and welcome!

It might help to know the approx size and material. Porcelain, wood, glass, painted bronze etc. Was it mass produced or an artist piece do you know?

This looks like a newer piece but is this what you mean by the cat's body being the cello?


https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/turov-hand-painted-cat-ca-art-1813771485

 

He says it was porcelain and that it was tall and thinish. The body of the cat was the actual cello and that the right hand help the bow to play it.

 

He also says it was about 8" tall and it could hold flowers in the belly.

 

I found this cello cat


Still looking

 

Might help to know what country grandpa grew up in.

 

In USA specifically Eastern TN

 

Google search for "cat cello porcelain" or adding "vase" or "pot" or "planter" or changing cello to violin(or bass) etc...leads to lots and lots of different figurines/planters etc of cats with cellos/violins - but I haven't seen one where the cello is literally the body of the cat. Sometimes it completely covers the body of the cat from the front, but not one where it IS the body.

 

Eastern TN -
Next door to North Carolina and all of their potteries.

Does grandpa remember whether it looked like a finished piece or a folk art type of piece.
By that I mean, things sold by companies or imported would have been done in a more sophisticated fashion. The North Carolina items may have had a more artsy type of look.

 

I am running into the same issue. I have never found one like he describes. But he swears that is what it looked like. Is there a way to add a picture. He drew a picture for me and I have the photo saved on my phone

 

He says from what he remembers is that it more than likely would have been a mass produced item.

 

Here is a rendition of what he remembers

 

I have no idea how to do it from a phone.
Here are the basic instructions -
Post it like you would a reply.

https://www.antiquers.com/threads/making-a-post-and-uploading-pictures.16038/

 

Click full image

 

I have to get off.
However, it just dawned on me - you might be using the wrong search term.

Not a cello --Look for fiddle.
The cat and the fiddle - Cow jumped over the moon.

 

That looks so familiar. My mother had dozens of ceramic animal figurines of all types and I swear I remember a cat with a fiddle body. I looked around and can't find it, either, but I know what you mean.

 

Keefer does he think it could be from the 1950s or 60s? It has a beatnik/ mid-century sort of look to my eye from your drawing.

 

He says it's from the 1920s. Although I have yet to find anything resembling it. He may be remembering the wrong period. He told me there was only one lady who knew what he was talkong about back in the early 70s. She was supposed to help him track down one and she moved away from the area and he has had no luck since. The original one he saw was one that his mother's sister owned. So I guess the date could be earlier or later than the 20s.

 

If you do find any info please let me know!