{"product_id":"cast-iron-three-hook-rack-with-hand-painted-setter-and-potted-tulip-c-1990-2020","title":"Cast Iron Three-Hook Rack with Hand-Painted English Setter and Potted Tulip, Brazed Hand-Forged Hooks, American, c. 1925–1955","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA small wall rack cast in iron and hand-painted, and the design is a little scene rather than a plaque. A long-coated setter walks the top of a rail fence, nose up and tail out straight behind it, and at the far end of the rail sits a terracotta pot with a single red tulip standing in green leaves. The dog is caught mid-stride with one forefoot lifted, which is what gives the whole thing its motion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe painting is done by hand over the raw casting. The dog is white with black ticking sponged across the flanks, a black muzzle and ear, a black eye and a red mouth line. The tulip is scarlet over a yellow-ochre pot, the leaves a flat spring green, and the rail is left dark. The white has been laid on generously enough that it has run over the outline and shows around the edges on the reverse.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eBelow the rail hang three hooks, and they are forge work rather than cut stock. Each one tapers along its length, swells again where the tip turns up, and finishes in a rounded return that has been upset — thickened under the hammer — rather than simply bent. The screw hole through each shank is punched rather than drilled: slightly out of round, with a raised lip on the exit side where the hot metal was pushed through. Two further holes pass through the backplate itself, so the rack fixes to the wall at five points.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe reverse is raw dark iron with the sand-cast texture left as it came out of the mould, and the openwork of the fence rails and the dog's legs is cut clean through, so the wall shows between them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe image is a durable one in decorative ironwork. Sporting dogs — setters, pointers, spaniels — have been cast into doorstops, bootscrapers, hooks and door knockers since the nineteenth century, and a white setter with black ticking is one of the most reproduced subjects in the whole tradition. The potted tulip on a rail belongs to a different lineage, the painted cottage idiom, and the two together are a decorative combination rather than a documentary one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe making is what dates it, and it is all hand work. The backplate is sand cast, and the reverse still carries the coarse, pitted, irregular texture of the mould with no cleaning up — a face nobody was meant to see, left as it came out. The openwork between the fence rails and beneath the dog's legs is cut clean through, which on a casting means a cored mould: extra pattern work, extra cost, and the first thing dropped when a design is made for volume.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe hooks are hand-forged and \u003cstrong\u003ebrazed\u003c\/strong\u003e to the plate at the head of each shank. The joint is the tell: the filler has \u003cem\u003eflowed\u003c\/em\u003e into the junction and pulled itself into a smooth concave fillet that wraps the shank and wets out onto the casting, and it carries the warm golden cast of a brass or bronze rod. An electric weld does none of that — it sits proud of the surface as a raised bead of the same grey metal it joined, and it does not flow.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eBrazing is also the \u003cem\u003ecorrect\u003c\/em\u003e way to do this, which is the point. Cast iron is genuinely difficult to weld: the carbon content is high, the heat-affected zone cools hard and brittle, and the casting cracks. Brazing works below the melting point of the iron, so the base metal is never melted and never stressed — which is why joining steel to cast iron with a brass rod and a torch was standard shop practice for the better part of a century. Somebody who knew what they were doing made this. Taken with the tapered, upset hooks and the punched holes, it is all the work of a torch and an anvil.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eAll of which places it in the great American run of painted cast iron — the tradition that produced figural doorstops, bootscrapers, door knockers and hook racks in volume from the 1920s through the 1950s, cast in the foundry and then hand-painted in the paint shop from a master sample. That is exactly what this is: a production object, but a production object made entirely by hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe dog is worth naming properly. It is an \u003cstrong\u003eEnglish Setter\u003c\/strong\u003e, and the black flecking across the white coat is not decoration or distressing — it is the breed's actual marking, called belton, which a painter was reproducing faithfully. The long feathered tail, the low ears and the high head carried at the point all confirm it. Sporting dogs were the most popular subject in decorative American ironwork, and the setter was the most popular of the sporting dogs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eStated plainly: there is \u003cstrong\u003eno foundry mark, pattern number, or maker's stamp\u003c\/strong\u003e anywhere on the front, the reverse, or the hooks, so the piece is not attributed. Painted cast iron of this period was frequently unmarked, and the range below rests on the casting, the forge work and the paint rather than on documentation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003ctable border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"8\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:100%; border-collapse:collapse;\"\u003e\n    \u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eField\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDetail\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/thead\u003e\n    \u003ctbody\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eWall-mounted three-hook coat and key rack\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eSubject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eEnglish Setter in belton marking walking a rail fence beside a potted tulip\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eSand-cast iron backplate, hand-painted; hand-forged hooks brazed on\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eConstruction\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eThree hand-forged hooks, tapered and upset at the tip, \u003cstrong\u003ebrazed\u003c\/strong\u003e to the reverse of the cast plate with flowed brass fillets at each shank head; openwork cut clean through at the fence rails and the dog's legs from a cored mould; five fixing holes, punched rather than drilled — two through the plate, one through each hook shank\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eNone. No foundry mark, pattern number, or maker's stamp is present.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ec. 1925–1955. American painted cast iron; unattributed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eVery good and solid. The casting is sound with no cracks or losses, all three hooks are firmly attached and true, and every screw hole is clear. The hand-painted decoration is bright and complete, with the dog, tulip and pot all fully painted. There is honest paint wear with scattered losses down to bare metal at the high points and edges, exactly where hands, coats and years have rubbed, and white overspill shows around the outline on the reverse from the piece having been painted face up. \u003cstrong\u003eThe paint is original and has not been touched up or restored.\u003c\/strong\u003e No structural rust, no repairs, nothing loose. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n  \u003c\/table\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eHooks are the one piece of hardware in a house that has to work every single day, and most of what is sold is a strip of brushed metal that nobody looks at twice. This one does the job and gives you something to look at while it does it — three sturdy iron hooks that will take a heavy winter coat, a dog lead, a bag, a hat, or a set of keys, under a small painted scene that reads from across a room.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eIt goes where the hooks are needed rather than where art goes: inside a back door, in a mudroom or entry, in a bathroom for towels, beside a kitchen door for aprons and tea towels, in a child's room, or in the corner of a hallway that has always needed something.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eIt is also an unusually specific gift. Anybody who has an English Setter, or any belton-marked dog, will recognise theirs in it — the painter got the markings right — and a small useful object aimed exactly at somebody is worth more than a large vague one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eAnd for a collector, the thing that matters here is that the paint is original. Painted cast iron of this period is very commonly found stripped, repainted, or freshly “restored,” and every one of those is worth a fraction of an untouched example. This one has its own paint, worn where it should be worn.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA note on installation and care. \u003cstrong\u003eFix it properly.\u003c\/strong\u003e Cast iron is heavy before you hang anything on it, and a loaded coat hook pulls down and out on the fixings — use all five screw holes, into studs or into proper wall anchors rated for the load, not into bare plasterboard. Keep it dry: this is iron with a painted surface, and any chip that reaches bare metal will rust if it sits in a damp bathroom or an unheated porch. Dust it with a dry cloth or a soft brush, working into the openwork where dust collects. Do not wash it, do not use any abrasive or metal polish, and do not touch up the paint — hand-painted cast iron is worth more with honest wear than with a fresh coat over it, and matching that white is harder than it looks. If a chip does go bare in a damp room, a spot of clear wax over the exposed metal will stop it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48030734614633,"sku":"VE-0662","price":275.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/1C83E677-2DFC-415F-AF5A-D28528514B9B.jpg?v=1789016904","url":"https:\/\/viridianeclection.com\/products\/cast-iron-three-hook-rack-with-hand-painted-setter-and-potted-tulip-c-1990-2020","provider":"Viridian Eclection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}