A pair of Royal Worcester porcelain models of birds: Red Eyed Vireos and Swamp Azalea
modeled by Dorothy Doughty
designed 1950; issued 1952
Shape numbers 3469 & 3470, black printed factory marks, titles and signature mark.
heights 7 1/4 and 8in (18.5 and 20.3cm)
Provenance:
The Edmund W. and Carol Browning Dumke Family Trust.

Footnote:
Edmund Wattis Dumke and Carol Dean Browning Dumke were each descendants of two notable twentieth century families in the western United States. Together they were generous philanthropists, horse enthusiasts, and art collectors. Ed was also an entrepreneur. Ed married his Ogden hometown sweetheart, Carol Dean Browning, on Sept. 12, 1950.

Ed?s family company, Utah Construction, was founded by Edmund Orson (Ed?s grandfather), Warren, and William Wattis of Ogden in 1900. Utah Construction built the Feather River Railway between Salt Lake City and Oakland in 1911. The success of this difficult project led to UC building the Hetch Hetchy dam in 1917 and being the lead contractor to build the Hoover Dam in 1931, which was the largest construction contract ever signed by the US government at that time.

After the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor opened the Pacific Theater during World War II, the US Army decided to build a strategic land highway to connect the US mainland to Alaska. A construction consortium lead by Utah Construction built this 1,500-mile highway in partnership with the US Army Corps of Engineers in less than 8 months. Utah?s partnership with the US Corps continued after the war including building the Cheyenne Mountain Complex ?doomsday? bunker for NORAD in the 1960?s.

Utah Construction became a large-scale land developer by building the town of Moraga and the shorefront in Alameda in California. In the 1950?s, Utah Construction also became a mining colossus with mining divisions in the US, Australia and South America.

In the early twentieth century, Utah Construction owned the Wine Cup Ranch. At its peak, the Wine Cup Ranch consisted of 3 million acres (more than 4,500 square miles) between the Utah border and Elko, Nevada. Utah Construction merged with the General Electric Corporation in 1976.

Ed served in the Navy during World War II. After the war, Ed received a master?s degree in business administration from Columbia University. Ed became a stockbroker in Salt Lake City and helped finance the uranium mining industry in Utah in the 1950s. He became a member of the New York Stock Exchange while working on Wall Street in the early 1960s. Later, Ed began a company manufacturing composite and fiberglass products, including the first fiberglass skis for Dura-Fiber and Head, golf shafts for Head and vaulting poles for Browning.

Carol?s grandfather was John Moses Browning who is considered one of the most talented and successful gun designers of the nineteenth and twentieth century. John Browning invented, or made significant improvements to, the lever action and the pump action for rifles and shotguns. He also invented the first practical autoloading pistols and gas operated firearms.

Browning?s notable designs include the Winchester Model 1886, 1892, 1894, and 1895 which were all classic lever action rifles synonymous with the American West. His military designs include the Colt M1911 ?Colt 45? handgun; the ?BAR? Browning Automatic Rifle; the Browning 1917 and the M2 ?Ma Deuce? automatic weapons. Most of these inventions remain in

production today. John Browning founded the Browning Arms Company to manufacture sporting arms in Belgium in partnership with Fabrique Nationale Herstal.

Val Browning, John Browning?s son and Carol?s father, continued his father?s career as a designer and the long serving Chairman and CEO of the Browning Arms Company in Morgan, Utah. Browning makes sporting arms including the Auto 5 designed by John Browning and the Superposed designed jointly by John and Val Browning.

Val was an enthusiastic collector of art, jewelry, and decorative arts over his lifetime. Val had a well-regarded collection of old master paintings. Thirty-nine paintings of Val Browning?s, including "Dance Around the Maypole" by Pieter Brueghel, the Younger (1564-1638), ?Portrait of the Young Countess Schouvalof? (Elizabeth Vladmirovna 1797), and other masterworks by Van Dyke, Foschi among others were donated to the University of Utah to form the Browning Collection at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Besides the museum, Val was a significant donor to Browning Arms Gun Museum at Ogden's Union Station, the Saint Benedict?s cancer center, the Val A. Browning Learning Resource Center and the Val A. Browning Library at Dixie College in St. George, Utah.

The collection presented here include items from Val Browning?s estate not donated to the museum and other acquired items purchased by Ed and Carol over a lifetime of collecting art. Most items were in Ed and Carol?s long-term home in Sun Valley, Idaho. Ed passed away in 2019 and Carol passed away in 2023.

Not examined under UV light. Small losses to flowers and stamen. One leaf deatched but extant. Due to the intricacies of these models there are possible small losses or small repairs not visible under raking light.