Indian Chief towel rack by the H. L. Judd Company, a cast iron antique

Not long ago, I was laying in bed recovering from yet another back surgery when I saw this pop up in an online auction. I had no idea what it was, but I knew that I needed to buy it. Spirited bidding ended with me winning the lot for not very much money. 

When it arrived in the mail, I realized that it had been repainted with a rattle can gold paint job which was used to cover large blobs of latex paint that gotten on it when someone painted the wall it was on. It looked terrible. However, the original paint was still on the back, so I thought I’d match that then strip off the horrid gold (I tried just removing the top coat but it had bonded to the original paint very well and all of it came off). I wound up very carefully scraping the paint off because the stripper had started removing the paint from the back.

I began my research into this intriguing cast iron towel rack. I managed to find one other that had been sold on eBay and the listing was archived on another website. The towel rail is called the Indian Chief model. There is a matching Indian Maiden version that was available as well. It had been made by the H. L. Judd Company around 1916-1920ish. Judd stopped producing their cast desk sets in the early 1920’s and was absorbed into another company in 1939, when all of their decorative castings were discontinued. I searched for quite some time, not only combing the H. L. Judd catalogues that have been scanned and are online but also purchasing an original copy from 1920 for my own reference bookshelf. I also scoured websites that keep records of past auctions as well as private sales. I came up with only the one, besides mine. Not many of these were made and they weren’t made for long. They’re considered to be very rare.

How it arrived, spray painted gold with latex blobs underneath.

The towel rack in the archived listing had the original paint on it, so I could see the scheme that they used. Honestly, I thought that the original paint washed out the figure and all the amazing fine details in the figure. If one looks closely at the raw metal sculpture, one can see that there is an incredible amount of very fine detail in the original sculpt, far more than I had expected to see in something made of cast iron. Judd didn’t put a lot of work into the paint job though so those details were lost in the wash of brown. Since other companies of the same period (Kronheim & Oldenbusch, for one) that made novelty castings (bookends, desk sets, souvenir statuettes and the like) offered their castings painted like carnival prizes, colorful and very detailed, I thought that the same treatment would be fitting for this piece.

The original paint scheme. Not very exciting.

Mostly stripped of the old paint.

Now, I’m not much of a painter, but I figured that I could do better than Judd did. So I went down to my local arts and crafts supply store and bought some enamel paint. I decided to try to match the original color that is extant on the back. It’s a sort of burnt sienna and I knew I’d have to mix it myself.

My selections. A limited but bright palette seemed in order.

I began by mixing the brown with a little orange. I nailed the original color on my first attempt! I used the fresh paint to infill some of the chipped areas on the back, to see how well I did. I now can’t tell where I painted! So I began to paint the front, starting with the skin.

First coat of skin tone. This is going to be awesome!

I went with a garnet red for the cape to make the figure pop a bit more. His braids are wrapped in red, a traditional color I’ve seen in old pictures of men from the Plains tribes. I was aiming for a dry grass color for his loincloth and worn buckskin for his moccasins. I did my best to pick out the details in the casting with color. After struggling with how to paint the background, I decided that a solid “14k gold” paint would be perfect, and after “antiquing” it with black I’m confident that I made the right choice. He looks to me like he’s about to step off the background.

 

The, umm, “special toning” at the bottom of his belly was a mistake that I left alone. I was toning his abdomen with black using a brush and rag. Some paint pooled in his bellybutton and spilled over when I tipped up the rack. I grabbed a dry brush in an attempt to pull out the black paint so I could wipe it off with the rag. The result was hilarious! I laughed so hard that I began to hiccup when I saw what had happened. As trying to remove that black paint or painting over it would likely have ruined the overall paint job, I decided to go the other way and add a little bit of black under his arms to complete the look. It IS anatomically correct, if not very PC. Well, it’s mine, I’ll change it when I feel like it. It’s just paint, after all.

 

After several days of working an hour or two on it, I finally got it to a point where I had to set it aside. Since the towel rack didn’t come with a method to attach it to a wall, I used Command Strips to stick it to the side of my period roll top desk. I’ll make a decorative bracket to hang it with, something that will match the background details.

 

Finished for now. I have yet to tone the feathers. That’s for later.

I am over the moon with how this turned out. I’ve amazed myself with this one, especially for my first attempt ever. I had such low expectations of my skills that I thought I’d be top coating with the factory paint wash. I'll be stripping this back to bare metal soon so I can treat the iron for a bit of surface rust, but for now I’m glad that I tried!