Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840

Don't you love the figure of an officer below? The first example I encountered belonged to a UK collector, an older gentleman. He loved his example--rightly so--but he believed it to be Admiral Rodney. I was not so sure. The title sounded more like a sales pitch to me, so I started digging around.

From the stock of John Howard. H: 12 1/2".

I found examples of similar figures in assorted books, each authors claiming it as a different hero (the Duke of Wellington, the Duke of York, Nelson....take your pick!) but evidence for a link is far from convincing.

Two examples in the National Maritime Museum are both described as Nelson. Intriguingly, one example lacks a hand, but not an arm. We all know Nelson lost his arm in 1794, but the Museum's figure appears to have incurred like the loss of a hand in a latter-day battle, rather than at manufacture.

Best I can tell, the two figures in the National Maritime Museum are from similar molds parts, assembled differently. The silver luster figure is attributed to Wood & Caldwell, but I am uncertain whether it is actually marked so. That the figure is lustered is significant. The technique of silver lustering was done using platinum and it was first introduced commercially in 1805. So we know that the lustered figure was made some time after 1805. Note that it, like John Howard's figure, has two good arms. If the figure was intended to portray Nelson, surely it would have been made to show the Admiral's sacrifice of a limb more than 10 years previously?

I tend to think that this figure is NOT a British officer. If he were, he would sport a garter star on his breast. Also, the sash worn as a belt over the coat is typical of continental army uniforms. Could our hero just perhaps be intended to be Napoleon? Or could he portray one of the European military leaders allied with Britain in those war-torn years. Or just perhaps he represents an actor from one of the great military renactments popular on the London stage in the early 1800s.

I have asked one or two amateur period uniform enthusiasts about this figure, and they tend to lean toward it representing a continental officer. If you have any thoughts, please share!  

 I am a self confessed workaholic, but one of the treats of going to London is the fact that at the end of the day my office cannot beckon. I always pick up the free newspaper that is shoved into my hands as I exit the tube, and last thing at night I do the Sudoku to help turn off my brain. The same newspaper includes another brainteaser: the reader is asked to spot 5 differences in two closely similar photographs. I must admit to finding this challenging because, unless it is a figure, the minutiae usually escape me.

With figures, the devil is in the details. Knowing what should be on a figure is invaluable clue to damage or restoration. A small component of a figure can easily be lost and the restorer will disguise the scar from the injury that caused the loss. The ignorant buyer may assume that the figure was just made that way. Again and again, I encounter just this issue. That's why it is so important to be able to spot the difference...between the ideal that you carry in your brain and the figure that is available for sale. Now let's try to spot the similarities and differences in these two figures.

I will admit I was caught here. These two figures have no restoration (except the end of the shepherd's crook on one.) Both are marked WALTON. But one is made with a bocage; the other has a spill holder. Note another key difference. The top figure has a perky pooch placed to the left of the shepherd; the lower figure has no dog at all. In the spot where the dog should be there is a rough circular patch under the green paint. The only part of the dog that remains is a paw, also covered over with green.

Conclusion? I decided that the dog had been knocked off the base and a restorer had covered the scar with green pain. My friend Malcolm Hodkinson corrected me. He pointed out that the green paint was original. The dog was knocked off the base in the biscuit or glaze firing.... and then enamel was applied over the scar (and the remaining paw.)  Far from being the work of a modern day restorer, the rough green patch where the dog had been was a manufacturing flaw.Walton decided that the figure was far too good to discard, and a rough patch on the base was no big deal.

So learn from my mistake. Always look for differences. Know that most times they are significant...but turn your brain on so you won't be fooled!

An intriguing and unrecorded figure is at auction at Waddington, Toronto, lot 69, December 3. At first glance, it seems familiar. A 14” wide feline formed as a tiger stands on a typical 6-footed ‘Sherratt’ base. Two plaques are on the base, but here comes the surprise. Rather than reading The Death of  Munro, the plaques read The Death of a Negro. But where is the Negro? You might expect to find his mauled form suspended from the tiger’s jaws or slung beneath his claws. Instead he is nowhere to be seen. Waddington’s auctioneer Bill Kime suggests the Negro is instead in the tiger’s tummy!

When I first saw The Death of a Negro, I assumed that the figure of a black man had been knocked off the base, a fate that sometimes befalls Lt. Munro in The Death of a Munrow. Yet Bill Kime assures me that there is no indication that a person was ever part of this vignette. Bill has looked very carefully at the base—he is so good at this—and there is no restoration to disguise the loss of a figure.

Consigned with The Death of a Negro is another similarly sized ‘Sherratt’ figure on a matching base. This time it’s that well-known The Roring Lion, as the title plaques indicate. Bill tells me that he believes these figures have lived together for a long time, perhaps even from their creation, and that intriguingly both figures have similar “dental damage.” He suggests that children once used the figures for lion and tiger fights, and bashing the animals’ mouths against each other caused the damage. What a lovely thought!

I believe The Death of a Negro relates to an incident in February 1834 when two felines escaped from Wombwell’s menagerie and attacked and killed four people, including a mother with a child in her arms. A unique ‘Sherratt’ figure of a tiger with a baby dangling from its jaws and a woman prone beneath its paws portrays some of the tragedy of that day. We know nothing more about the other victims, but could one have been a black male? This would account for other rare recorded figures of felines attacking a black man. And it would explain Waddington’s The Death of a Negro.

A last thought: Waddington’s tiger does not have stripes! Instead he has spots arranged in clusters of three. (I love the cluster on the center of his nose.) Is our beast intended to be a leopard? Or perhaps the new décor was an attempt to differentiate this figure from The Death of Munro.  Congratulations in anticipation to the new owner(s) of Waddington’s ferocious felines—and I so hope they remain together, without any more fighting.

Several years ago, my husband surrendered. He paid the ultimate price of living with a pottery addict: out went all our unneeded books because the shelves were needed for figures. The books had all been great reads once upon a time, but realistically we were never going to read them again. Of course, my reference library was another story. It remains, filling shelves that line my office. But beyond my office, shelves in the Schkolne household display figures, not books.

I am VERY fond of all my reference books, even those that are hopelessly inaccurate and of little academic worth. In that category, I include Anthony Oliver's "Staffordshire Pottery." I never knew Anthony Oliver because his Kensington Church Street shop, Oliver Sutton, was unwelcoming, to put it politely. Collectors' yarns of the difficulties of 'getting in' are legendary. I once achieved momentary success, but the man who had opened the door stood holding it open while I looked. My rapid departure was expected! I was so young then. No-one would stop me today. I was told that you had to have blue-washed hair and an American accent to be allowed to linger and I will never qualify on either count!

Anyway, I hold no grudge for Oliver Sutton's lack of hospitality. If anything, I believe I would have really liked Anthony Oliver if we had been allowed to know each other. How do I know this?  Well, the man just LOVED figures. His love for them oozes through each page he writes. So I know I would have loved him. ..if he had only given me the chance.

This evening I pulled down from my shelf Anthony Oliver's "Staffordshire Pottery: the Tribal Art of England" and thumbed through looking for a picture that I just knew was there. I had seen an unusual sailor figure when I was at the NEC antiques show two weeks ago...and I was sure that the figure was in Oliver's book. It had been playing on my mind. And I was right. There it was on page 146. I thought the figure was rare as I could not recall another example. And Oliver also knew it was rare.

The figure I saw at the NEC was on the stand of Hiscock and Shepherd--John Shepherd is the pottery half of this partnership, while Erna Hiscock does the needlework and one or other of them buys an eclectic range of treasures. I snapped the figure for my photo archive, so here it is.

This is the figure I saw in John Shepherd's stock at the Birmingham NEC this month. He leans on an anchor. H: around 8".

A similar figure is in Anthony Oliver's book. H: 7 3/4". As Oliver reminds us, such figures are "very rare."

Oliver writes: Examples of ceramic naval heroes before the nineteenth century are almost exclusively confined to portraits of famous admirals. Very occasionally the odd representative of life n the lower deck turns up but they are rare.

I sat and thought about the figure and it added up. These figures were made for upwardly mobile, middle class homes. A lower deck sailor was hardly a desirable parlor ornament, so few would have been made. Then I remembered that photography had not yet been invented, so having photos of distant loved ones was unknown. Surely figures served as substitues? Did some lass treasure this figure because it reminded her of her own Jack Tar, perhaps away at sea fighting Napoleon? Or did some mother cling to it as a reminder of a lost son? Of course we shall never know. But it does make me think again about the role of figures in the lives of those who first owned them.

John Shepherd's figure may/may not be available and it was a very modest price, which at today's exchange rate is another example of a figure that can be bought for around the price of a night in a NY hotel room. John, like Anthony Oliver, just LOVES early figures--and he doesn't bite. Rather, he is one of the nicest, most interesting dealers.
http://www.ernahiscockantiques.com/view_category.php?category_id=20

Ever noticed the impressive, large Bacchus and Ariadne that Elinor Penna is selling? Would you believe that this masterpiece owes its existence to a restoration error? No, the error is not in Elinor’s figure, which is correct. The problem began centuries ago.

Bacchus and Ariadne. Circa 1800. H: 24". Courtesy Elinor Penna.

Elinor’s Bacchus and Ariadne is modeled after a Graeco-Roman marble of Priapos and a Maenad. This marble had lost both figures’ heads and most limbs when it came to Britain from Rome circa 1770. Today we can confirm its identity as Priapos and a Maenad: a Graeco-Roman marble in Athens has Priapos’s head intact, and a group in Berlin preserves the maenad’s head.[i] But around 1770, something went very wrong. Faced with a headless, limbless trunk, an English restorer used his own initiative. He restored the marble incorrectly to resemble Dionysos (also known as Bacchus) and Ariadne —possibly he used a  4th century BCE bronze relief in the British Museum for "inspiration."  The transformed marble was imitated as a smaller plaster and in bronze, which were in turn mimicked in pottery, giving rise to the pottery figure now known as Bacchus and Ariadne. [ii]  
 
So what happened to the botched marble? Today, you can see it for yourself in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

References
[i] Vermeule, Cornelius. “Recent Museum Acquisitions: Priapos and Maenad (Boston Museum of Fine Arts”; Vol. 111, No. 795, (June 1969), p381-382
[ii] Poole, Julia. "Pagiarism Personified." p64.

I can't stand the rain. Two dark, grey, soggy days--and I need a sunny day to bathe my new figure (see the Scuffle in the posting below). Bath time is one of the joys of new ownership...so let me explain.

 Have you ever thought how filthy figures get? The colorful coating on our figures is essentially glass, and you can only imagine how disgustingly dirty a glass would get if it was passed from hand to hand or just stood on a shelf in your home for centuries. If you strip away that dirt, you reveal a figure that can be as amazingly fresh as the day it left the kiln. So when I get a new figure, I just yearn to wash it. But the moment must be right. A sunny afternoon when the sunlight streams through the window over my kitchen sink is perfect for this loving ritual. Some figures wash up quickly, but others have black, grease-like dirt lingering in crevices and these need more time. Because I wouldn't dream of airing my dirty laundry/figures in public, I show you a photo of someone else's dirty figure--from an auction listing. Would you want anything this dirty in your collection?

Gross, isn't it? And can you imagine the dirt that is pasted in all the nooks and crannies of a bocage? Sometimes it is so black and gooey that I know the figure must have stood near a fire place. Because I get to photograph other people's figures and view them magnified I really see the dirt. Sometimes, dirt is so apparent during photography that I carry a little dusting kit with me to try to discretely dust off a figure, very superficially at least, while my host or hostess doesn't notice. One charming English collector made no fuss. Before handing me each figure, she dunked it in a bucket of water...of course, I then had water drops to cope with instead of dust bunnies.

So what do you do to wash a figure? For years I was terrified because I had been warned that any restoration would immediately fall off, and several books warn of the dangers of using all but the correct water and detergents. So let me start by saying that you follow my advice at your own risk and if in doubt, please ask a professional restorer. I simply go to the sink, slather on some dishwashing detergent, take a large soft brusn (mine is made by Haggerty for cleaning silver without scratching it), and wash the figure in comfortably warm water, scrubbing away at any obvious dirt. I rinse very well and am always careful to keep water away from areas that have been restored. I don't think splashes of water will hurt, but you don't want to soak restored areas. In fact, I soak nothing. A quick wash and dry does it. Then I look again for any residual dirt. Usually, it is tucked in areas my brush couldn't reach. I take a tooth pick and dig it out. All that black grunge is usually quite easy to remove. Finally, I place the figure in the sun to fully dry....and it GLOWS!  Take it from someone who hates housework: cleaning a figure is the most rewarding form of washing up.

For the record, I have friends who use things as diverse as ammonia solutions and electric toothbrushes to scrub at their figures and so far so good. I prefer to be cautious. But I reckon that anything that comes off with my gentle cleaning shouldn't have been there in the first place.

When Gary the mailman rang my doorbell today, clutching a parcel, I thought that this is what Christmas must feel like. No, Gary was not wearing a Santa suite and this Jewish girl has never had Christmas....but I felt all that childlike excitement that comes with an anticipated gift. So what was in the parcel, my gift for moi? Look for yourself.

Isn't this a wonderful Scuffle??? Look at the colors and the fat, bright bocage flowers. They look like candies pasted onto the bocage. The glaze is so shiny...makes we want to lick it. (No, I don't do that! Nor do I tap with my teeth to check for restoration. I have seen others do this and I wouldn't want to put my mouth where theirs have been.) No restoration. Jut like I want it.

The Scuffle is a fairly common figure form. It can be found with or without a bocage on varying bases and the figure is sometimes titled. Scuffle closely resembles another figure that is sometimes titled Contest. Seems the potters got confused because Scuffle and Contest are often switched around. In fact, I am not sure which one is really meant to be Scuffle and which one Contest.

The pair above are titled and have bocages--see my book for other examples, including an especially nice marked WALTON version.  I wish I knew the source for the design of these figures. A few years ago Dreweatt Neate had an oak carving portraying the Scuffle that they believed was 17th century, so there is something more to this than a pretty picture. But what? I don't know. If you know, please share. myrna@schkolne.com

For those of you into the technicals: there are several figures in my photo archive with this bocage format. Their identical bocage leaves, coupled with those distinctive flowers and other shared features, indicate that they all originated in the same pot bank. We don't know the potter's name. He will probably always remain anonymous.

Rumors of the market's demise have been greatly exaggerated (my apologies to Mark Twain). Amidst all the financial doom and gloom, I feared the worst for Andrew Dando's selling exhibition that debuted in cyberspace this past Saturday. I set my alarm early to click on as the "doors" opened, and within hours lots and lots of the pottery figures had been sold. Bear in mind, we are not talking about junk sold at junk prices. These were great items, carefully selected, with prices commensurate with their worth. Seems collectors quickly flung their money down to secure them.

I don't know how the porcelain in Andrew's exhibition fared, but pottery sales seemed stellar. This exhibition follows on the UK's NEC antiques show the week before. I was there. Dealers at all levels had feared the worst, given our current economic malaise, but instead they were jubilant at sales. Seems collectors know that when they buy good items they are not spending their money, just transferring their assets. I tell my husband that each time I make a major purchase....and  how I wish I had transferred more before the sub-prime crisis hit. 

Above is just one of the pages from Andrew's exhibition. The tall bocage figure (back left) is titled FLIGHT &. Presumably it was sold to pair with one titled RETURN, the subject being The Flight and Return to Egypt. Lovely to see this figure titled, and this bocage is particularly pretty and is one of my favorites. A gorgeous figure. It would not bother me that it is one of a pair. The other half looks so similar that it adds nothing. I love this figure and hope you do too. More importantly, I am sure it's new owner loves it. Yes, it is sold!

In the center of the picture is a New Marriage Act.  The plaque reads "JOHN FRILL AND ANN BOKE AGED 21 THAT'S RIGHT SAYS THE PARSON AMEN SAYS THE CLERK."  The group was made around 1823 to celebrate the passage of the New Marriage Act. Prior to that date, a couple could marry in violation of one of England's persnickity marriage laws, and many years later either party could use that violation as reason for annulling their marriage. Even if both parties wanted an annulment, this created a problem: annulment left their children illegitimate, thus having disastrous consequences on inheritance. The New Marriage Act of 1823 made it no longer possible to annul your marriage because of a petty violation of marriage law that had ocurred at the time of marriage. The marrying age was 21. So, as the plaque reminds us, if you said you were 21, there was no going back.  And no going back to Andrew's site to buy this figure either. It too has sold.

The cobbler and his wife on the right of the photo are Jobson and Nell. Jobson is the lowly cobbler and Nell is sweet wife. They starred in The Devil toPay or, The Wives Metamorphos'd, a ballad farce first performed in 1731. Revivals were popular on the English stage into the 19th century. A performance was staged at Covent Garden as late as 1828, and even children's books drew from the theme and illustrated Jobson and Nell (see below for a page from a book published in 1825.) I love the marbled bases on these figures. The manufactory that produced them usually potted high quality wares and these are a true pair.  An unusually lovely example of an often poorly executed subject.

Enough for a night! I really want to tell you that the sweet girl and the goat are unusual and each has merit...but more next time. So hard to stop when I am rambling on about figures.

Tomorrow is Saturday, and it's a mere week since I went to Portobello Road and, although its famous antiques market is nowhere near what it was, I yearn to be able to go again today. My love of Portobello goes back to the early 1960s, when I was 10 years old and living in London. Portobello Road's bustling  weekly market was just a few minutes walk away, so many a Saturday I would go along with my mother. In those days, the tables in the center of the road were bedecked with silver teasets and trays, and GBP1 was the going rate for Victorian silver. I bought my first little piece of pottery then, a ghastly thing that later made it to the local charity shop...but I caught the antiques bug on Portobello Road.

Each time I go to the UK, I must go back to Portobello. It is a welcoming constant in a life that has tossed me across continents. I am there at 7 as I love the sleepy feeling as the market opens and the dealers grumble about how bad trade is. And I am out by 9, as the tourists descend, intent on buying a kitsch souvenir. Lately, there are fewer stalls and many do not open early, or at all...but still I must go. I am genetically programmed.

Last week, my routine changed. I had my friend Lisa with me, and she is not programmed for 7 a.m. appearances on Portobello. So we arrived at 8:30. For once, the routine was different and we had a slow meander, looking at a myriad things. I bought birthdays and wedding gifts--no, not from those yukky tables outside. Of course, it rained, and rained, and rained; it was freezing outside and hot inside; there were tons of tourists; and part of the road was closed because of a gas leak---all this made for soggy discomfort, but Lisa and I had a blast and wouldn't have missed it for anything.

So tomorrow is Saturday again, and what will I do in my Portobello-less world on this side of the Atlantic? Why, I will get up at 6 a.m. again, to look at Andrew Dando's Exhibition, which comes on line at that magic hour! (See details under events.)

Returned from the UK late last night and it is great being back in my snug office with my dog, Maddie, at my feet. The UK was, as always, amazing--especially the London snow fall, the first October snowfall in London since 1934. Seriously, I could have done without the freezing cold and rain...but that's a London winter for you. I rushed down to Sampson Horne right away on my first morning, but found nothing new and things very much in transit between NY (where Jonathan and Christopher had just wrapped up a show) and Olympia (starting Nov 8.)  Talk about a brutal way to earn a living. I simply don't know how our major dealers cope with getting themselves and their fragile treasures across the globe to cater to our tastes.

The next day, Thursday, I set out for the NEC Antiques show. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the show, the NEC is an exhibition complex in Birmingham and the show is possibly the largest in England. It attracts major provincial dealers and a host of smaller dealers. It is very much a show for the English, as opposed to tourists. In fact, I encountered only one other American and she lives in London. As the NEC complex has its own rail station and is a quick 80 minutes from London by rail, it is a not-to-be-missed outing if you happen to be in London at the time. My friend, Lisa, and I actually spent TWO days at the NEC, coming and going by train quite quickly and painlessly.

For me the highlight of the show was seeing my friend Nick Burton. Nick wasn't exhibiting so it gave us some precious time to hang out together. Wish I could get Nick to stock more early figures, because he has the sharpest eye and his Victorian figures make a dazzling display when he does a show. But some of my favorite dealers and friends had stands at the show. As always, John Howard's superb exhibition of wares reflected his discriminating standards that always inspire me to reach into my pocket. Simply THE best--and its always so much fun buying from John. Andrew Dando was not exhibiting--his shop exhibition happens next week, see details at www.andrewdando.co.uk--but Andrew was in charge of ceramics vetting, so he was around and I always enjoy talking to him. Ivan Mears and David Boyer had an interesting selection, with unusual items--so nice to find dealers who still recognize the extraordinary. Philip Carrol, whom I met for the first time, also had a lovely array of early figures. Beyond that, ceramics were scattered across dealers' stands, but both John Sheperd and Martyn Edgell (both my kind of dealers) carried an interesting selection among their wonderfully eclectic stock. I loved finally meeting the guys from Juno Antiques. They have superb taste in pottery and porcelain, but not much in figures--yet. I am expecting great things here because these are the nicest dealers, totally above board  with great taste. My only complaint: their dog Homer, who is part of the team, should have been at the show too!

So what will I confess to buying? My first purchase is proudly basking in the light flooding the corner of my desk and I am SO pleased with it. Thanks to Martyn Edgell , I now own a recumbent Walton lion in perfect condition.  As the lion symbolises England, this is the perfect memento of my trip.

Pearlware recumbent lion, marked WALTON. H: 4.75". Made in Staffordshire, circa 1820.

 Do you know how rare this little Walton lion is? Walton made lots of figure forms--I am compiling a list of known Walton figures and I am into the 80s with the list still growing. Some of the figures are a lot more common than others--but the mark makes them all rather desirable. I have seen tons of figures in the flesh, but I haven't actually seen a pair of recumbent Walton lions--only the odd pair in an old catalog. As for singles, I have seen just one, but not in the condition I would have liked--and at too steep a price. So I was thrilled to acquire my little fella from Martyn for a reasonable price. Will I ever find a pair? Probably not. And I don't care. I have a simply GORGEOUS single to enjoyt.

I love the dog-like, shaggily friendly recumbent lions that Staffordshire potters made. The Wood and Caldwell lion accompanying Britannia is in this vein (see below), as is the pair of recumbent Wood and Caldwell lions...and of course, the Walton recumbent lion. I believe the design source for these lions is the terracotta lion that John Bacon made for Heaton Hall, Manchester in the 18th century. This lion was probably the source of the ceramic lions made by the Plymouth factory circa 1770, and in turn they were replicated in earthenware.

Heaton Hall's lion, possibly the design inspiration for Walton's earthenware lion.