Robert Simmons Pottery
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Robert Simmons Ceramics was a mid-century American pottery operation based in California, active from the 1940s into the early 1960s. The company produced airbrushed pottery dog figurines with hand painted eyes. The line covered a wide range of breeds and other animals, including collies, boxers, spaniels, German shepherds, Scottish terriers, and wolfhounds, typically produced in small to mid-size decorative formats.
A distinctive and well-documented feature of the company's output is that most, if not all, of their figures were copies of other companies' figures, with Beswick and Royal Doulton being the two most copied from, among several others. Animals were often issued in sets or pairs sharing a single item number, with figures often marked with a Robert Simmons sticker and a small silver rectangular sticker bearing the animal's name and item number. Collectors also note that many of the animal figures have a spot of paint on the bottom of a foot, a small but useful identifying trait for authentication.
Robert Simmons figurines are collected today chiefly for their nostalgic mid-century American pottery appeal and their place within the broader story of California ceramics manufacturing of the period. Because the firm's output overlapped closely with more prestigious British makers whose designs it emulated, well-preserved examples with intact original stickers and paper labels, like the glossy brown-and-white collie figure typical of the line, are particularly prized by collectors of vintage dog and animal pottery, since labels and stickers were easily lost over decades of handling and display.
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