So who made this

[bananabob]

This comes from the 1950s-60s and was used by my mother when she worked for Calman Links. They were the Queens furriers back when furs were still PC. The item is used as a weight to hold the silk on the bench for cutting and sewing the lining.

I assume that it is bronze. It has a signature and I would like to identify the maker and also find out what it could be worth.

 

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[Fat]

... I have no real answers for you but I think that is a really neat sculpture.
It reminds me of something that was repurposed. A decorative piece from the lobby that was heavy enough to hold the material in place but light enough to move around easily for said purpose. Complete conjecture on my part.
Fur is the original bio-degradable, renewable resource. Modern synthetic textiles are derived from Sweet Crude Oil...

 

[ivan salis]

likely iti s a bronze statue of a mink -- commonly used in making fur coots --as you well seem to know wear furs is not PC these days so likely that fact would hurt its value somewhat but it should still have value as a bronze nature animal casting

 

[ARC]

Calman Links (Trading) Ltd
241 Brompton Road, London
Post Code - SW3 1LX
United Kingdom

Company Name
CALMAN LINKS (TRADING) LIMITED
Company Type
Private limited with Share Capital
Company Status
Company is dissolved
Incorporated On
17 July 1985

 

[Red-Coat]

I thought the question was not about the self-evident connection to Calman Links the famous London furrier, but about who created the sculpture and what it might be worth?

The signature looks to me like “F Lessore” and my guess is that this is Frederick Lessore (also known by his full name Frederick Lessore de Saint-Foix), active between 1905 and 1951. Lessore sculpted mainly portrait busts and I’m not aware of him making animal figures but the signature here appears to be followed by the letters “SC”. That’s short for “sculpit” (Latin for” he/she carved it”) and usually appears alongside the name of the modeller for an artwork which was originally created by another artist. A sculptural copy of someone else’s earlier work if you like.

At the time banananob’s mother was working for Calman Links they would have been at 33 Margaret Street W1 not at Brompton Road SW3. Until Lessore’s death in 1951, his studio was at 7 Bruton Place W1 (also operating as the Beaux Arts Gallery from 1923) which was about half a mile from Calman Links’ premises. By this time the company was being run by his son Joseph Gluckstein Links (but still in his father's name).

I would guess that Links and Lessore were known to one another and that this work was a made-to-order commission for shop window or counter display, or perhaps sat on managers’ desks.

It’s not exactly a shining example of sculptural skill so won’t have much value on that basis, but somewhere there will be a collector who wants it for commercial history reasons. Difficult to value on that basis but, even though there will probably be very few of them, I wouldn’t think it terribly valuable.

 

[ARC]

I thought the question was not about the self-evident connection to Calman Links the famous London furrier, but about who created the sculpture and what it might be worth?

The signature looks to me like “F Lessore” and my guess is that this is Frederick Lessore (also known by his full name Frederick Lessore de Saint-Foix), active between 1905 and 1951. Lessore sculpted mainly portrait busts and I’m not aware of him making animal figures but the signature here appears to be followed by the letters “SC”. That’s short for “sculpit” (Latin for” he/she carved it”) and usually appears alongside the name of the modeller for an artwork which was originally created by another artist. A sculptural copy of someone else’s earlier work if you like.

At the time banananob’s mother was working for Calman Links they would have been at 33 Margaret Street W1 not at Brompton Road SW3. Until Lessore’s death in 1951, his studio was at 7 Bruton Place W1 (also operating as the Beaux Arts Gallery from 1923) which was about half a mile from Calman Links’ premises. By this time the company was being run by his son Joseph Gluckstein Links (but still in his father's name).

I would guess that Links and Lessore were known to one another and that this work was a made-to-order commission for shop window or counter display, or perhaps sat on managers’ desks.

It’s not exactly a shining example of sculptural skill so won’t have much value on that basis, but somewhere there will be a collector who wants it for commercial history reasons. Difficult to value on that basis but, even though there will probably be very few of them, I wouldn’t think it terribly valuable.

It was... but that is where you come in :P