This is a beautiful pair of 1/3 scale mallard decoys made by Charles Perdew and painted by his wife Edna. F.D. Loomis. Loomis and F.W. Paralee were commissioned by the State of Illinois to document all of the decoys made in the state. They recorded over 200 carvers in "The Decoys and Decoy Carvers of Illinois" The most prolific and best known carver on the Illinois River was Charles Perdew (1874 - 1963). During his sixty-year carving career he made thousands of hunting decoys using a drawknife, wood gouge, whittling knife and a make shift mechanical sander fashioned out of an old treadle sewing machine. Until 1941 his wife, Edna painted most of the decoys, as is the case with this pair. Although the two used the same basic patterns and paints, their styles were quite different. Edna used wet-on-wet blending and more "combing" which made her style softer. Combing was a technique used by many of the Illinois River carvers to emulate the ducks vermiculation (fine barred lines found on some feathers). Perdew used mostly bold loops painted on a dried base color to detail his feathers. Perdew carved mostly puddle ducks, mallard, pintail, green and blue winged teal, wood duck and diver ducks, bluebill, canvasback and geese. He also carved decoys for crow hunting. There was once a bounty on dead crows in Illinois. Perdew influenced many Illinois carvers and several he personally taught. Perdew also made a few mechanical owl decoys whose heads turned and made a rasping sound as a string was pulled. This lot features two mallards, a hen and a drake and are both marked "Charles/ Perdew", (parts faint) on the bottom. The drake has his head erect, while the extraordinary sleeper hen has her head turned with her bill resting on her back. The ducks are as expected beautifully carved by Perdew and painted by Edna. They are approximately 5 1/4 inches in length, 2 1/2 inches wide, the drake is 3 1/4 inches tall to the top of his head and the hen is 2 1/2 inches tall.

The sleeper hen is excellent. The drake is very fine with a dent above the left eye. A beautiful pair of Perdew miniatures that would highlight any decoy collection.