Cold Painted Austrian Bronze Carpet Seller

This figure is of a carpet seller holding his carpet up for display for sale. The carpet is very colourful and vibrant with the original cold painting.  At the turn of the 19th century there were about fifty workshops producing Vienna bronzes.  ‘Cold-painted bronze’ refers to pieces cast in Vienna and then decorated in several layers with so-called dust paint; the know-how for the mix of this kind of paint has been lost. The color was not fired hence ‘cold painted’. The painting was carried out mainly by women working at home, a typical cottage industry.

Approximately 3″ tall / 2 1/2″ wide