Featured Ugly glazed horse

I have this ugly horse for about 10 years in my little pottery collection. It isn’t Delftware, because this is made of red instead if brown clay. Is this just some modern experiment?

 

You're right, it's butt-ugly...but there's something there, Ill-defined, tenuous, but subtly charming. Some serious age wouldn't surprise me.

 

posssibly a manicore

 

Because it has a saddle I think it is a horse.

 

I think it's a clay figure of a medieval horse with caparison/blanket. I LOVE IT!!

 

Sometimes ugly sells. Collected studio potter Lea Halpern made similar figures. Born in Europe but died in USA in the 1980s.

 

There *is* something charming about it. I like it! The oddity is also intriguing. Looks like it could have been made in a mold. Is that possible? Maybe glazed and decorated by a student or somebody experimenting?

 

It is possible it was made in a mold, but it looks so irregular.

 

True...maybe sculpted, but the sculpting was never completed?

 

possibly ...
https://www.google.com/search?q=gla...0&bih=746&biw=1600&rlz=1C5MACD_enUS1034US1035

 

An oddity: the saddle only shows fully on the RH side.
Also, tho it's underglaze, the markings for saddle, headstall, etc, appear to me made by a felt-tip marker. Surely not? I dunno...

 

Wow very odd. At first glance it’s looks like they run out of clay for the horse head. But the legs (especially the front legs) looks completely wrong for a horse looks more like cat/lion legs.

The half saddle/side saddle doesn’t make sense at all (this certainly doesn’t look a animal any human should be riding) May it’s some legendary Chinese creature.

Anyway it’s a very cool and intriguing piece. I also think is was sculpted and not from a mold. I don’t have much knowledge about pottery but this looks really very old to me..

 

I think your ugly horse is charming, and worth looking into.

The general physique is also horse-like.

I was also looking in the direction of Iran, but it isn't in my "Ceramics of Islamic Lands". Which doesn't mean it can't be from Iran or the vicinity.

 

Is it small enough to be a chess piece?

 

Only if you have a very large chess board.

 

Just saw this - what an intriguing object! I was wondering about the glaze around the bottom - the way the glaze stops before it reaches the bottom of the base, it almost looks like perhaps it was attached to something else at some stage? I am certainly no expert but wondering if it is an architectural feature, or part of building decoration of some kind. It looks like old folk art to me, rather than modern. Would love to know if you get any further with it!

 

I rather like it!
It looks like a very early (and ugly!) prototype of a Staffordshire or maybe Pratt ware figure to me.

 

19th century polychrome Pratt ware horse,

 

Any ideas on the origin? If USA, then I'd send some photos to Crocker Farms. I had a dog figure that was pretty ugly, same color pattern as your horse. I sent a few photos to Crocker Farms and they ID'd it and sold it for $$$. I think I paid .50 for it.