Stained glass window showing RCA's Nipper mascot
date: label: date made
content: 1915
name: label: maker
content: Nicola D'Ascenzo Studios
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: This object is a large stained-glass window showing one of the world’s most recognized commercial images. A white dog, named Nipper, sits in front of a record player, head cocked to one side, listening to “His Master’s Voice.” The window is one of four designed in 1915 by Nicola D’Ascenzo (1871-1954), made at his studio in Philadelphia, and installed in a tower at the Victor Talking Machine company headquarters in Camden, New Jersey.
label: Description (Brief)
content: The design originated with an 1898 painting by Francis Barraud (1856-1924). Barraud’s first version featured his dog Nipper (1884-1895) listening to an Edison cylinder-type phonograph. A representative of Britain’s Edison-Bell Company disliked the image, so Barraud repainted it for their rival Emile Berliner, replacing the Edison machine with a Berliner Gramophone. Berliner purchased the rights for his National Gramophone Company, and secured United States trademark number 34830 in 1900. The company became the Victor Talking Machine Company, and later the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). Nipper, eventually joined by a son named Chipper, endured as the icon for the company, its successors, and its international subsidiaries.
label: Description (Brief)
content: The window is 14 feet (4.3 meters) in diameter and is made of nine main panels. Replaced in 1970, all four original windows were preserved. In addition to the one here, others found homes at the Rowan University Library (Glassboro, NJ), the Camden Historical Society, and the Wolfgram Library at Widener University (Chester, PA). This window was cleaned and restored in 2017.
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanisms
label: Exhibition
content: His Master's Voice
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of the Radio Corporation of America, thru Nicholas F. Pensiero
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: ME.330390
label: catalog number
content: 330390
label: accession number
content: 288895
objectType: label: Object Name
content: window
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 14 ft; x 4.2672 m