Fighting Cock Sculptures (Pair)

Udall & Ballou, the retailer of this pair of silver cockerels, was one of America’s premiere jewelry companies in the Art Deco period. Founded by two silversmiths in 1888, by the 1920s Udall & Ballou had expanded their offerings beyond jewelry to include bijouterie, candlesticks, and small decorative figurines such as this pair, purchased by George Booth from their New York store in 1928.

Meticulously detailed, each feather on the birds’ bodies is individually textured, while their arched necks and gaping beaks suggest the tension and cacophony of a combat in progress. The heavy weight of their dramatically sweeping silver tail feathers is counterbalanced by the cockerels’ forward-leaning postures, allowing the figures to stand on their own two feet without toppling over.

It is unlikely that George Booth or his family ever attended an actual cock fight, as they never engaged in other blood sports such as hunting. The appeal of these figures to George Booth likely lay in their elegant design, and perhaps in their evocation of the chickens that lived on the Cranbrook property from its purchase in 1904 until the shuttering of farm operations in 1922.

Mariam Hale
2023-2025 Collections Fellow
Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
August 2024