History
"Have you really taken a look at your Blumenkinder Courting piece?" so asked the Olszewski Fan Club organizers, Wallie Reinprecht and Jackie Bednar, during an early 1990 phone interview with Robert Olszewski. "The poor dog has no eyes! exclaimed the interviewers." "Bob explained the reason the pooch has no eyes is that the Blumenkinder Courting piece he used as a model, didn't have any eyes! Thus, his miniature pieces don't have any eyes." "No wonder the dog is in the wheelbarrow," commented Wallie and Jackie.
Source: Small Talk Issue 1 - April 1990
"This [Blumenkinder Courting] is an interpretation in miniature of a Goebel porcelain figurine from the blumenkinder figurine collection by the artist Lore, called "Courting Country Style" Dick Hunt, author, writes. "The little boy, all dressed up in his jacket, vest and bow tie, is going out to meet his girlfriend with a bouquet of flowers, a box of candy, and his dog. This was carved in September 1979. Approximately 1800 were produced with a 1980 dated TMK."
Hunt further wrote in his limited edition book of 10,000, "The original Blumenkinder "Courting Country
Style" (Lore 250) has been discontinued but may still be found
in a Goebel TMK4,5 or 6. This porcelain makes a good 12: 1
[or also known 1/12th] scale companion piece to Bob's figurine.
Hunt wrote that "Bob carved this piece because his little face was [pointing] up." He had learned from his pre-Goebel "Boy and Girl with Fruit" that face-down figurines are not popular. The head and face of the original piece are unusually large, actually overemphasized. This was a different type of challenge, since all previous faces he carved had been small."
"Bob was concerned about the metal flow, since all the
molten bronze for the wheelbarrow and the dog must flow
through the front tire, and for the boy through his feet. Bob
developed a special casting technique to solve this technical
problem." Click here to read about the "technical process" Olszewski used in the creation of his figurative art using the Lost Wax Process.
Hunt's description revealed "The brown wash over the yellow-white undersurface of
the boy's jacket was an especially simple, yet subtle, painting
technique. Note the many glazes: his hair, coat, shoes,
wheelbarrow, dog, and flowers. There is much time spent in
the studio "cleaning up" the interface areas after all this glazing.
A glaze is hard to control because of its thinness. An
opaque paint is thicker and stays where it is applied. The
sequencing of glaze application is most important. Painting
the boy's vest and' 'lifting" the orange next to his buttons was
also tedious, as was cutting in the hairline around his ears."
"One of the most difficult jobs for a painter to execute is
a symmetrical line, Hunt states." "Note the pesky thin gray line at the top
of the base. The figurine must be held in one hand, rotated,
and painted all at the same time. Considerable training was
necessary to learn how to rotate a full 360-degree circle without
removing the brush and not running out of paint in the
brush. Try holding the figurine in one hand, rotate it a full
circle. and still hold a fine point exactly on the gray line. You
will find out how tedious a job it is."
"The line, once painted, cannot be touched up without disturbing
the glaze areas on the base, or on his shoes. Remember,
all the paint in the studio at that time was air dried-no
drying room and took up to three days to dry between painting
steps.
The dog has no painted eyes or nose. because the original
that Bob used as a model had none. It was later determined
that this was a factory error, and all future editions of the large
figurine have painted eyes and noses. In spite of this. Bob
decided not to add them to his figurine."
"Olszewski signed the figurine on the top of the base in the white area near the boy's left foot."
Source: Dick Hunt: The Goebel Miniatures of Robert Olszewski, p. 59 and 60.