Ruffles + Dog Girl (Robia Ware)

Unlike many collectors I have a fascination with the common, not the rare.  Specifically things that are mass produced in a era where with was still done manually, producing a lot of small variation. Case in point is this one Robia Ware (Roman Art Company) mold that I think of at "Ruffles + Dog Girl".  She is so common that any day of the week you will find a dozen for sale on Ebay.

I have a Pinterest Board devoted just to examples of this one mold. Some show variations of original painting, others have been repainted in modern times as shown by their perfect condition and modern (e.g. pearlescent) paint finishes.

The dog is probably a borzoi (aka Russian Wolfhound), the style of the lady is often described as "Southern Belle".  She is designed to be easy to produce with the dog pressed close to her voluminous skirts. The overall effect is often cheap and cheerful but also (IMHO) charmingly exuberant. Robia Ware included a number of different designs showing elegant ladies with borzoi dogs, as statue and lamps--but this one is by far the most commonly found.

Confirmation that the "Ruffles + Dog Girl" design is Robia Ware is show from examples that retain the felt base and sticker. These examples are well painted and presented, suggesting studio production. The studio versions seem to have a green dress over a pink skirt,  auburn hair, and a white dog with black spots.

But it is clear that this same design was also produced, later on, extremely cheaply and haphazardly as a carnival prize. These copies come in pretty much every imaginable color combination and the quality of execution is highly variable. There is a long history of better forms of ceramic being reproduced in plaster--going back to the mid-1800s when door-to-door salesmen would sell American consumers reproductions of Staffordshire ware and other old English pottery.

My own collection (below) shows the original in the center and various carnival molds on either side--some closer to the original than others in shape, and variously decorated. The original is noticeably yellowed from the aging of the wax applied as a final step to protect the porous chalkware and paint.