Designer: Rodney Marshall Winfield (1925 - 2017)

Item:  Brass carved children’s book illustration sculpture Ferdinand and Mama Bear

Manufactured by: Rodney Marshall Winfield (1925 - 2017)

Country of origin: United States

Year made: Likely the 1960s

Materials: Brass

Dimensions: 5 ½” x 3” x 2”

Condition: Excellent.

Description: Here is a terrific work in carved solid brass by Rodney Marshall Winfield depicting characters from what appears to be children’s books and fairy tales. We are fairly certain that one side is a rendering of Ferdinand the bull from The Story of Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf, a classic tale from 1936 about a bull that likes to sit and smell the flowers. Our best guess about the other side is that it is a rendering of Mama Bear from the 19th century British fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We are aware that artwork for that story sometimes included an image of Mama Bear with a parasol. This exceptional piece is carved from a thick solid piece of brass over half and inch thick and this little object is heavy, weighing in at about 3 pounds.

Rodney Winfield was an artist and designer from St. Louis who mostly worked in stained glass, but did work in other mediums. We have seen other similarly styled and sized works almost exclusively carved from pieces of travertine stone. We have only seen one other carved in brass.