Living the American Dream, Edward Marshall Boehm

November 05, 2021

Boehm collection: https://cityfarmhouseantiques.com/collections/porcelain-figurines Video Transcription: Good morning, Jennifer here with City Farmhouse Antiques and I am here on this beautiful Friday morning....I am not ready for this time change I wish we would leave things alone but we don't here in New Mexico. I wanted to share with you this beautiful sculpture. Those of you that collect porcelain can see just in these trumpet leaves alone that this is a very fine, fine piece of porcelain art. This is actually a Boehm piece and they produce a lot of sculptures of wildlife and animals. It was Edward Marshall Boehm that began this business. I just love his story. His story is about the things that American dreams are made of. He lived a true American dream. Edward Marshall Boehm was born in Maryland in 1913, but his parents separated before he was born and his mother died when he was just 7 years old and he never met his father until he was in his 20's I guess. He was enrolled in an all boys school for the poor and orphans until he was 16 and then studied animal husbandry at the University at Maryland and then worked on a farm until the 1940's. In 1944 he married the love of his life, Helen Franzolin, and moved to Trenton, New Jersey. They started the Boehm business in 1950. I love what he says about porcelain. Boehm stated "porcelain is a permanent creation, the colors will never change. It can be subjected to extreme temperatures without damage and it's a medium that can portray the everlasting beauty of wildlife and nature." He was a true lover of nature. When you look at his birds and sculptures that he created it is very obvious of his love for nature. He also kept a lot of very rare birds and huge aviaries on his property in New Jersey that inspired his work. If you see some of his sculptures they are just exquisite. They are so true to whatever bird or type of animal he did. Each piece has such extreme detail. I don't know if you can see this, but this porcelain sculpture even has the little tiny white slit in the eye. So the attention to detail and everything on this is so finely done. Each leaf is so thin. This is a small sculpture, but I just wanted to show you because a lot of his sculptures were birds and I had this piece, but the real piece I wanted to show you today is this one. This piece is very different. It is a piece of history, not American history, but pretty cool none the less. This is King Tut. Boehm made this piece, Egypt Salutes. This was a King Tut burial mask that was done in gold. This has gold in it. Look at the detail on this piece. It is a burial mask like I mentioned. It was made for the Egyptian Salutes bicentennial exhibit. I don't know if any of you remember that exhibit that took place that toured the United States. We didn't go see it, but now that I am older it would be nice to see it. I could appreciate it more now than I would have years ago. This is a really neat piece titled "The Mask". It is a limited edition. There were only 1000 of these made. It is a replica of the burial mask of King Tut. You can see the back here. There was an entire collection of porcelain pieces that go with this collection. Here you can see on the inside. I'm not going to lift it with one hand. It is stamped and number 575 out of 1000 and has the commemorative marking there Egyptian Salutes. Boehm made a lot of neat pieces. The Boehm business did re-open in 2016 under new management and ownership because of course the original founders are no longer living. What an awesome story of an American artist whose pieces still live on today. So when you think about what Edward Boehm would say about porcelain it is so true. The colors are still as vibrant as they were the day the piece was made and they are made definitely to last a lifetime and to be heirloom pieces to be collected and cherished. I wanted to share a little history with you. I think these stories are fun and brings more about the individual artists to light for collectors and those of us that want to start collecting. Be sure and check out all our newest finds of the week like this very unique piece. All of our pieces are up on our website at www.cityfarmhouseantiques.com where we have more than just antiques and be sure and go like us on Facebook. We would love that and be sure and share what you collect and your thoughts and photos. Tell us if you have an Boehm pieces? Take care until next week and have a beautiful weekend.