This is a 32" terra cotta goat head sculpture from the George Hauck brewery in Kingston NY.(1884-1941)

This is an architectural sculpture you don't see often, it almost certainly depicts a Dutch Landrace Billy goat.

The sculpture was rescued upon demolition in 1941 by a fellow who was a family member of the demolition company owner, it remained in his family's posession until this year when it was still up for sale and I purchased him via a convoluted path through a contact of the Kingston NY owner in South Carolina.

This had been for sale 3 years ago and I had saved the photo and page, then forgot about it till recently when searching for another photo on my drive. I wondered what became of the goat and checked the seller's old page and found nothing that indicated it had sold, so I emailed and asked about it and the rest as they say is history.

After a dozen fruitless calls to various movers, freight handlers and other firms, the third UPSstore I contacted said THEY could handle the pickup, crating, and shipping the estimated 300 to 400 pound sculpture via common carrier. I had been given a quote by another place for sending 3 men out and a truck- 6 hour minimum charge was going to be $1250 PLUS the crate plus shipping, so the UPSstore's quote was far better.

Their charge was $450 to go out and pick up, load and take the sculpture back to their store, $150 to build a wood crate for it and skid, and then the freight shipping was another $600. Hey, I like to give praise and credit when due and I sure can't complain about their two charges for pickup and crating, for the amount of time and work it's certainly a reasonable quote. The store was about 30-40 miles from the seller's house.

I highly recommend the UPS Stores in general for shipping of this kind, this is the second time I've used one like this and while they are individual franchises whose services and rates will vary, calling around will find one who can move, crate and ship just about anything, so go ahead and call them to have that pool table or piano shipped!

The sculpture was part of a story in the Kingston paper in the early 1980's, below is a scan and I'll obtain a much clearer copy soon.

As the goat is pretty unique, I doubt this was made in a mold as was typical, it would appear to likely have been sculpted for Mr Hauck as a custom item and this was the original clay model. I examined the surface looking for telltale mold seam lines and found none. No matter how carefull the workers were when making these terra cotta pieces I have always been able to find small remnants of the tiny raised seams where the multiple plaster piece molds fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. For the most part they were smoothed away, but small amounts of the seams would always show up in crevases and deep undercuts.

In reviewing possible makers, I find one likely candidate, who was started 4 years before the brewery was built, the other two firms which were major manufacturers on the East Coast came later;

Boston Terra Cotta Co., 1880

Region 2: Mid-Atlantic States New York

Atlantic Terra Cotta Co. (NJ/Stat Island) ,1897-c. 1927

N. Y. Architectural Terra Cotta Co., (Brooklyn) 1886-1932

There is a Boston VALLEY Terra Cotta Co in NY as well, but they date to 1889

As far as the breed of goat used for the model, my research led me to a gent in the Netherlands who confirmed for me that the goat amost certainly depicts a Dutch landrace Billy goat about 5 years of age.
The gent mentioned the horns were a little short, but that of course they within the circle of the sculpture- notice that one of the horn tips IS broken off, and of course the limitations of the material- terra cotta meant having to keep them relatively short at the expense of 100% accuracy.

The use of goats in conjunction with bockbeer brewery art and logos over there have been a long standing, so it stands to reason Mr Hauck imigrated to the US and started his brewery, and adorned the facade with the familiar art used back home with breweries.

It is interesting to note the breed is now extinct in Germany and had reduced down in 1958 to just TWO animals. Breeders revived the breed since and there are about 1500 now.

From: Landelijke Fokkersclub

The Dutch Landrace (Nederlandse Landgeit) is the original goat race of the Netherlands and shows great similarity with other northwest European landraces as found in Scandinavia or the feral goats in Great Britain. The Dutch Landrace is a medium sized, horned breed preferably with long hair. All colors are allowed except for the typical Toggenburg coloration.

From the beginning of the 20th century imported Swiss Toggenburger and Saanen goats were used for breeding to increase milk production. In 1958 the original population was nearly extinct and had decreased to only two animals. These two animals in combination with highly similar goats found in rural areas were used to create a successful breeding program. Today (2006) the population has increased up to more than a 1500 animals kept by 460 members of the Dutch Breeders Association of the Dutch Landrace (LFNL), most of them living in Holland but also some in Belgium, Germany and France.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: Bock beer is the name given to a variety of dark, lager beers that originated in German breweries, but are now made in many countries. The name bock is generally attributed to a corruption of the name Einbeck, a well-known German town, and morphed into ein bock. The wide use of the Billy Goat as a symbol for bock beer has the same derivations since ein is the German word for 'a' and Bock in German means goat.

Some examples;

After building an angled display stand with wheels for him, here is where he is on display;

How one transports something like this without a truck, I removed the blankets and some of the rope for the photo;

Macro of the texture, the sculptor finished this model up using a 3/4" wide toothed wooden modelling tool, it's repeating strokes can be seen fairly clearly and I use the same tools in my own work;