Would you like to own one of the artworks in the Art Institute’s collection for $51? This 1830 Money Bank is in the official collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
This same Money Bank is available on Etsy for $51.
Imagine that. Having a museum piece for $51. This Etsy version looks pretty identical to the museum version. Maybe I’m showing my ignorance of Staffordshire Pottery Houses.
However, the Etsy seller estimates the year as circa 1890. The Art Institute estimates theirs at circa 1830. Perhaps these Staffordshire Pottery Houses were a product made over the course of decades. This 1830 version could be one of the first? Whereas the version on Etsy is from sixty years later.
We need an Antiques Roadshow expert to look at this Etsy version. Did the seller just goof on their date? Is it instead really from 1830?
It’s so quirky that the Art Institute of Chicago has this item in their collection. This 1830 Money Bank was donated to the Art Institute of Chicago by Marie Wright in 1980. Did she donate other artworks to the museum?
MoreStaffordshire Pottery Houses in the Art Institute of Chicago collection
Let’s do a google image search for: “Marie Wright” site:artic.edu/artworks. A total of six sculptures come up. All in the same vein.
Let me remind you. These are actual artworks in a major museum’s collection. Can we please have these six objects all on display together in a gallery? Oh that would be so much fun.
In this group of six, we have dates of 1830, 1830, 1830, 1830, 1887, 1825-50. Thus, we have one outlier. The Chimney Ornament was created in 1887.
I was hoping to find this pottery available online for under $60. But alas, Google Lens didn’t come up with any results.
Related visually
If you do a search for this incense burner….
…you see wonderful results of pastel-frosted cakes exploding with colorful candy, Cinderella carriages, and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
All are visually related to an artwork in a major art museum.
If these Staffordshire Pottery Houses ever go on public display, there certainly would need to be some tasty cupcakes available in the museum’s cafeteria. I would bring my five-year-old and two-year-old daughters dressed as Disney princesses carrying their My Little Ponies.
Update
Ebay also has the same Staffordshire Pottery House money bank available for $60.
Also, I am not the one selling this. I encountered these Pottery Houses via the Art Institute of Chicago’s online collection. (I was using their ArtTab Chrome add-on to display random artworks with every new tab).
Some of the artworks in their collection are so oddball. I just had to do a reverse Google image search on all these to see what comes up.
Something tells me that Marie Wright may have donated significant dollars to the Art Institute of Chicago. “Oh, Marie! Thanks for your $XX,XXX,XXX donation to the Art Institute. Why, sure, we’ll accept into our official collection your donation of these lovely Staffordshire pottery houses.”
Maybe these Staffordshire pottery houses are little hidden gems in the narrative of art history. Artworks valued by higher institutions, yet somehow still available for affordable prices.
I’ve long wanted to see artists from Etsy make it into higher institutions. This is a bit like if there was an Etsy in 1830. One of those artists made it into a museum collection.