I recall seeing two other SIAB versions of this piece... one with more mupus and one with less pups.  They say that imitation is the most sincere form of flatterery, eh?

:-)

 

Here's some photos of the piece... I hope this works:

 

 

Robert,

 

That definitely looks like a SIAB piece to me. I don ;t see it in the either of the SIAB catalogs I have -- but I know I have seen it before and I am very sure it was a SIAB piece.

 

Mike

There are a few things that throw me... one is there is no signature what so ever, every SIAB pieces I've seen have it. It's also VERY simylar to Standing Guard, infact if you compare the two side by side, they are nearly identicle save for the mother pointing to her left instead of head on and the slight difference in the shape of the heads of the babies. It's like somebody coppied Peter's piece almost exact, leaving out the other pups too. Now, I've never seen SIAB do that close of a copy, but there is another company (there name escapes me) that made a nearly exact copy of "Love Seat" and "Tea For Two" but they are painted cheap and heavely glazed. This piece is stained half way decent, definitly not tumbled because it's got sharp edges and doesn't look like Marble Dust, too translucent. Thank you everyone for the help in finding out what it is :-)

 

Robert

I have many SIAB pieces with no signature or stamp or name engraved into the piece... there were some artists that did pieces for SIAB that were considered to be "knock-offs" or copies of HK pieces... for whatever reasons, these artists decided not to put their names on the replicated pieces.

 

 

No kidding Mike, I never knew SIAB did that, it must've P'd Martin off! Where there any similiar enough so that they'd be confused with earlier pieces that didn't have hallmarks or secrets? I mean, this one is different enough to raise questions but some others might not be.

We have a turtle ffrom SIAB that looks just like the HK "One Step Ahead" and we have a couple of the very early animal pile pieces from both HK and SIAB.

 

Keep in mind that almost all the original Netsuke pieces that Martin released were replicas of original Japanese one's carved in ivory in Japan in the 1800's... so imitation is the sincerest form of flattery :-)