Edition: 

Era: Goebel

Category: Original

Product Line:  Art of Miniatures

Series Name: Children

Art Form: Painted Bronze

Size: 3/4"

Studio Number: 631-P 

First Year of Issue: 1981

First Year Issue Price: $65.00

Highest Known Price Paid:

HISTORY: While Bob mowed the lawn, his two children, Meredith and David, would ride their tricycle up and down the sidewalk around their home on a corner lot.  This memory burned an image in Bob's mind, and that is all he used as a model for this sculpture.

GENERAL: This is a fragile figurine with the tiny handlebars, bike frame, and wheels on the tricycle.  Bob could have simplified the production and given the piece more physical support by having a solid front wheel and painting it white.  Instead, he decided to press technology and felt that the piece would look better if the wheel were not solid.  All the metal in the upper section must flow during casting through the points where the little tires touch the base.  Look at it closely, and you will be amazed.

Painting the interior surfaces was very difficult.  Look at the front of her shoes and imagine how hard it would be to reach in their with a brush.  It was the same for the front of her legs and dress.  The sequential glazes wanted to run into adjacent areas.  The painters told me that the thin red line on her dress "was a bear to do evenly." 

Notice the opaque, pink highlight over the red on the rear braces of the tricycle.  The red was meant to be a full, pure glaze, but this extra paint was needed to complete the look.  His hair has a light under glaze and a brown over glaze, while hers has a yellow under glaze and a brown wash over that.

The figurine has good motion with both figures leaning forward.  There is a certain charm with the two heads close together and their eyes focused ahead in anticipation; it makes a happy and very American statement.

SIGNED:  In the white area on top of the base between the two rear wheels or underneath her skirt in the back.