Johan Coenraad Altorf (1876-1955) and Chris Lanooy (1881-1948)

In 1910 a collaboration between sculptors J.C. Altorf and Chris Lanooy started on the initiative of art collector and Maecenas H.P. Bremmer (1871-1956). The artists started on a series of animal sculptures, experimenting with different forms of casting clay, including porcelain. The sculptures produced during this partnership were limited to a maximum edition of twelve and provided with a specific mark signifying the collaboration between the three men. The mark consists of a triangle with the initials A (Altorf), L (Lanooy) and B (Bremmer) at each corner and the edition of the sculpture placed in the middle. Bremmer included one piece of each series of sculptures produced by Altorf and Lanooy in his private collection. How many different sculptures the artists made is currently unknown, but in a period of a few years at least five were conceived: an elephant, an owl, a cockatoo, a seated monkey and a lying bison.