Borman The Sheriff Chalk

SIGNED E. BORMAN CHALKWARE CARICATURE COWBOY FIGURINE - "THE SHERIFF" - TALL HAND-PAINTED PLASTER WESTERN CHARACTER STATUE A tall, wonderfully ugly old cowboy caricature, and it is signed. This is a hand-painted chalkware - plaster - figure of a lean, sour-faced frontier lawman, standing hands-on-hips in a wide-brimmed pale cream hat, a bright red shirt with white buttons and a sheriff's star, tan canvas trousers, and black boots, with twin holstered revolvers on a tooled gun belt and a long black chin beard, hollow cheeks, and red-flushed cheekbones giving him the exaggerated, comic-grotesque look these figures were made for. He stands on a round base painted green on top and tan around the skirt, and the front of that base is incised THE SHERIFF while the top of the base behind his boots carries an incised copyright symbol and the artist signature E. BORMAN. He stands roughly 13.5 to 14 inches tall, which is big for a chalkware figure and makes him a real shelf presence - good in a western room, a den, a ranch-house bar, a barbershop, or a cowboy collectible display. Condition matters on chalkware and this one has honest damage: there is a chip with a loss of material on the hat brim beside the crown with raw plaster exposed, a crack line running across the hat brim, and paint loss, chips, and flaking on the arms, hat, belt, and base. Sold as one figurine. Description Form - cast and hand-painted plaster, commonly called chalkware, of a standing caricature cowboy or sheriff, full-length, both hands resting on his hips with elbows out, head tipped slightly, long narrow face with a jutting jaw, deep-set painted eyes, heavy brows, prominent nose and ears, and a spade-shaped black beard. Wearing a broad-brimmed hat with a dished crown finished in mottled cream and tan, a red long-sleeved shirt with a lighter front panel, a row of white buttons, and a small painted star or badge on the chest, tan trousers, and black boots, with a wide tooled gun belt carrying two black holstered pistols, the holsters detailed with incised stitching and studs. Mounted on a round stepped base, green on the top surface as grass and tan on the skirt. Size - stands approximately 13.5 to 14 inches tall overall, with a base approximately 4.5 to 5 inches in diameter and a hat brim approximately 4 inches across, per the tape-measure photographs. In the height photograph the tape stands on the shelf beside the figure rather than being hooked to it, and in the base and hat photographs the tape lies flat across the piece rather than hooked on an edge, so all of these figures are close estimates only. Bidders should verify all dimensions from the photographs. Marks - incised into the tan skirt on the front of the base, hand-lettered and paint-filled, reading THE SHERIFF. Incised into the green top surface of the base behind the boots, a circled copyright symbol above a hand-lettered signature reading E. BORMAN. No mold number, company name, country of origin, paper label, foil sticker, or date is visible anywhere on the piece, so none is claimed. The underside of the base is not shown in these photographs. Photographed on a dark oak shelf against a white wall. Nothing else appears in these frames; the single figurine pictured is the entire lot. The Milwaukee tape measure is a photographic reference only and is NOT included. Attribution note Chalkware is the collector term for figures cast in plaster of Paris and finished in hand-applied paint, a material used from the nineteenth century onward for inexpensive decorative statuary, carnival prizes, and mid-century novelty and character figures, as described in general chalkware collecting references. Because it is plaster rather than ceramic, chalkware is soft, porous, easily chipped, and never waterproof, and condition drives value on these pieces more than almost anything else. The signature on this base reads E. BORMAN, and figures of exactly this comic western character type signed E. Borman or E.J. Borman appear in the collector marketplace, where sellers commonly list the same "The Sheriff" model as a mid-century chalkware figurine of roughly 1940s vintage. That dating comes from seller listings rather than from any documented maker record, and it is NOT adopted here as fact. No production date, decade, date range, factory, series name, edition, or mold number is claimed for this figure, and nothing is claimed about who E. Borman was, how many of these were made, whether other titled characters exist in the same series, or what the piece is worth. The incised copyright symbol beside the signature indicates the design was claimed as copyrighted, but the photographs do not show a legible year beside it, so no copyright date is claimed. All identification here is offered as the consignor's photo-based opinion and is not guaranteed. Bid on the item as pictured. Bidders who collect signed chalkware or western character figures should study the signature photographs and reach their