Charming Old Folk Art Clay Skunk with Bristle Tail vase with tree and blossoms perhaps WWI

perhaps WWI

not identified as Fornasetti by the dealer

I am pretty sure it is more than 100 years old

and the reverse showing two old patches

Charming Old Folk Art Clay Skunk with Bristle Tail vase with tree and blossoms perhaps WWII found this hand formed clay skunk, dipped in a thick black, almost tar like (but not sticky) coat, at a show in Pennsylvania this past summer, and have just enjoyed having him sitting around for a while. Something about the shape of those individually sculpted and applied legs really does it for me, and then this bristle tail too. I have some notion that the tail had a function like the bristles found at one end of old cork screws used for clearing