Frederick Ping Knights.

Frederick Ping 1902-77.The great thing about Pings is they are mostly scratch built, so collecting can be a lot of fun.. Its great feeling that the figure on your shelf may not have many copies. A slight draw back is that sheet lead was used for some the clothing and if its not cared for correctly can suffer with lead rot.

They are wonderful figures and

many great figures from the past were modeled in Pings own wonderful style like this wonderful figure of Simon de montfort on the left.

Hamelin Plantagenet - Friedrich 11 - William de Toulouse

Llewelyn Prince of Wales - Thiebould King of Navarre

Sir Geoffrey Luttrell.

This scene from the 1345 Luttrell Psalter was used as Pings 1975 Christmas card. It shows Sir Geoffrey Luttrell and daughter-in-law Beatrice Scrope.  As can been seen from the photo on the left above, I found the model for sale at auction in a sorry state, as well as missing Sir Geoffrey's wife.

Happily the figure has now been restored .Peter and Gilly Greenhill recreated Agness Sutton from a Courtenay casting and finished her in flat colour, but as a Greenhill. The two other figures were restored to match the original. Peter and Gilly did an excellent job, the picture does not do it justice.

I do hope Sir Geoffrey  holds on to this Dame Agness Sutton this time. 

A picture of the original Ping as it appeared for the Christmas card may be found on page 94 of Peter Greenhill's book, Heraldic Miniature Knights see my book page