Toy pushcart cameo is possibly of Italian Origin by: Anonymous
Good Afternoon David
no doubt about it, a very unusual cameo subject. The father of toy pushcarts was Antonio Pasin who was born in Venice, Italy in 1897. The son of a cabinetmaker, Pasin moved to America In 1913 when he was 16 to begin a new life in New York City.
Pasin had no money and invested his savings, and bought used woodworking tools and rented a one room workshop.
Here the history of the toy pushcart get's interesting - did the young Italian son of a cabinetmaker bring the idea of the push cart with him from Italy, was it his father's invention? or did Pasin invent the idea of the pushcart after he arrived the US?
Were toy pushcarts around in Italy before the turn of the 1900s? If you are certain the cameo predates the 1900s, this will alter the orignal date of the invention of toypush carts slightly :-) and also redirect the place of the invention of the first toy pushcart towards Italy. If any visitors, living in Europe or Italy can recall stories maybe handed down from ancestors of toy pushcarts from early times, around the 1900s, please add your story below. The number scratched on the back of the cameo could be the clincher.
These digits could represent the maker, Italian silversmiths used numbers to designate the maker mark in the earlier days of modern italian hallmarking history, Italian carvers might follow suit, it is quite possible,
If your cameo does predate the US toywagaon and is of Italian origin, it is a fascinating piece of art history. The video of the Pasin story would support an older cameo of Italian origin. It states that Pasin "never had a wagon as a child" - and he was a child in Italy.
The length of the pin on the reverse of the cameo also indicates an older, antique cameo.
In 1933 he commissioned a 45-foot art-deco statue of a boy riding a wagon above a mini 25-cent souvenir wagon store at the Chicago World's Fair.
