Inner-row Spare Stander - Canterbury
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Carver: Rollie Preston
Painters: Annette Ayre, Lauren Baker & Donna Panasiuk
Size: 36" chest to rump
Status: finished
Sponsor: available
Location: Hotel Selkirk
Lauren Baker's Canterbury was inspired by an outer-row stander once carved by Charles Carmel, one of the great carvers at work during the Golden Age of Carousels.
Carmel supplied figures to the PTC from 1913 to 1921. He had been born in Russia in 1865, emigrating to the United States in 1883 with his new bride, Hannah, when he was seventeen and she a mere sixteen. The couple settled in a house with a small attached shop near Prospect Park in Brooklyn, near one of his carousels that is still in operation.
Although his early figures were a bit crude, by the time he carved for the PTC he was creating what many thought of as the perfect carousel horse, achieving a nearly ideal union of fantasy, charm, movement and elegance. Always a freelance carver, Carmel learned so well from the masters of his art, who carved in both the New York and Philadelphia styles, that it is often difficult to know who actually carved a particular figure. His horses had strong aggressive poses that were always tempered by sweet, gentle expressions. There was a whimsical element to his carving that no other carver could match. It has been said that Carmel created the quintessential carousel.
As with Canterbury, Carmel's armoured horses were one of his favourite subjects. He frequently embellished his figures with tassels and fish scales. Rollie Preston, carving with a group of seniors two days a week at the carving studio, has coaxed our inner-row stander out of its eight blocks of basswood.