Cane with horse head and bridle handle possibly Pennsylvania, late 19th/early 20th century

dogwood with brass ferrule.

Oliver Christman, Pottstown, Pennsylvania
Richard Machmer, Hamburg, Pennsylvania, 1978  

"American Radiance: Highlights of the Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum," de Menil Gallery at Groton School, Groton, Massachusetts, October 15 - December 15, 2002

American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum, p. 364, fig. 329A

Very good condition.
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Canes with animal-head handles were particularly popular among 19th and early-20th century carvers. If they were made from saplings, handles frequently followed the shape of root patterns. Alternatively, handles could be carved separately and attached to the shaft. These differing techniques resulted in a wide range of interpretations, as seen in these five examples.

One cane, with a handle in the shape of a rounded, snub-nosed dog head with leaf ears, is identified with the work of "Schtockschnitzler" Simmons. By tradition he is thought to have been a German immigrant who wandered parts of Berks County, Pennsylvania, with a pack of finished and unfinished canes on his back with which he bartered for food, drink, and a night's stay. He had two nicknames, "der Alt" (the old one) and "der Schtockschnitzler" (the cane carver), but his given name is unrecorded. While he is best known for his bird canes and bird trees, his dog and horse canes are equally distinctive.¹

The other two canes with dog handles are just as stylized and have well-carved shafts with animal and plant motifs. As with most makers, these cane carvers' approaches are highly individualized. The cane that is probably by the Bally Carver features animals of a fairly consistent depth that wrap around the shaft, while the carver of the dog and rooster cane chose to combine relatively high relief on the upper shaft with incised floral patterns on the lower part.²

The two horse head canes are similarly varied. On one, the carver focused all his attention on an imaginative and finely detailed horse-and-bridle motif, leaving the shaft undecorated. On the other, the maker was concerned primarily with the shaft. Highlighted in polychrome, animals, birds, and a horse and rider are interspersed among a leafy vine that wraps around its entire length. -R.S.

¹ For biographical information, see Richard S. Machmer and Rosemarie Machmer, "The Birds of 'Schtockschnitzler' Simmons." Historical Review of Berks County 39 (spring 1974): 58-59. 79, and Richard Machmer, Just for Nice (Reading, Pa.: Historical Society of Berks County, 1991), p. 76. For related examples, see Machmer, Just for Nice, p. 20, fig. 19, and George H. Meyer, American Folk Art Canes: Personal Sculpture (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.: Sandringham Press, 1992), p. 47, fig. 60.

² Little is actually known about the Bally Carver other than that he worked in the Berks County area around the turn of the 20th  century. For a related example, see Meyer, American Folk Art Canes, p. 47, fig. 58.