The origins of this antique figure have us scratching our heads

This Beaux Arts-style spelter, or pot metal, Victorian head dates from the fourth quarter of the 19th century. It was mass produced and probably was made as a fitting on a utility object like a heating stove. SCOTT SIMMONS / FLORIDA WEEKLY

So much of the pleasure of owning antiques may lie in contemplating the mystery of a piece.

What is it?

What’s it made of?

When was it made?

Who made it?

Who owned it?

How did it get this or that mark?

For those of us out treasure hunting, how did it wind up here?

Finally, if we need to move it along, what’s it worth?

We can apply those same questions to this piece, a 5½-inch classical head of a woman.

As for the first question, I’m not sure what it is.

The head, made of spelter, or white metal, probably was used as a fitting atop a heating stove or some other appliance.

I can make that guess based on a piece I picked up years ago of a figure of Minerva.

She, too, was made of spelter.

But it was a full figure of a seated woman in classical dress. And on the base of the piece, it read “Gold Standard.” For years, we pondered it and did internet searches, only to guess it had come from a bank.

Scott SIMMONS

A friend took it to sell for me at the big antiques show at Mount Dora, and another friend came by, looked at it, and said “Gold Standard? That was the name of a stove.”

Bingo. I found an image of a near identical one online.

Back to this head.

If it were a furniture fitting or a baluster cap of some sort, the quality almost certainly would be higher — bronze, at least, rather than pot metal with gold paint.

Still, it’s attractive and that brings us to when it was made.

I think it was cast sometime in the fourth quarter of the 19th century.

It was the time in which Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed the Statue of Liberty.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens sculpted designs that became the basis for some of the most beautiful of American coinage.

That style, Beaux Arts, or as the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach likes to call it, “Gilded Age,” drew upon notions of French neoclassicism. It is named for the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, popular stylistically throughout the second half of the 19th century — the façade of Buckingham Palace is an excellent example of that style.

Now we come to some of the mystery: Who made it? I have no idea. The piece has one hole at the front of its collar and holes in curls at the back of the head for screwing it down to something. But for what and by whom, I have no idea.

As for who owned it, I can imagine it bringing a little style to a middle-class home of the 1880s or ’90s standing atop a stove or some other appliance.

Overall, the paint is in good condition, with rubs to the nose and to the curls that suggest years of dusting and cleaning.

And value? Well, it’s worth whatever someone will pay for it. I’d expect to see it sell somewhere in the $35-$50 range in a shop or at an antiques show — maybe a little more up North, where there’s more of a market for antiques such as this.

After all, it’s a great paperweight or conversation piece.

That much we know.

As for the rest, a little mystery keeps things interesting. ¦