Myrna Schkolne: Early Staffordshire Figures

Did cleanliness approached godliness in ancient times? Staffordshire figures portraying Hygeia, the ancient Greek godess of health, cleanliness and sanitation, support this. Hygeia was associated with the prevention of illness and maintaining good health. Of course, the word "hygiene" is derived from her name.

In classical sculpture, Hygeia often holds a large snake (the symbol of medicine--Aesculapius, the god of Medicine, was Hygeia's father). Her other symbol is a water basin. The cult of Hygeia started in around 600 BCE and became 'hot' around 400 BCE because of the spread of plague. By 100 CE temples to Hygeia were established in Rome.

Classical subjects were favorites for Staffordshire potters from the late 18thC onward, so, of course, we find Hygeia formed as a Staffordshire figure.  Examples of this pearlware figure can be 'tired' looking, so it is rewarding to wait for a figure with good enamels atop a nice glaze, such as the example on the left. A fine example just requires a little patience--but it brings a lifetime of pleasure.

Hygeia also occurs with a bocage, but as such it is extremely rare. If you want this, good luck trying to find it, especially with original bocage intact.

As many of you know, my beloved English Cocker Spaniels, Max, Martha, and Maddie, co-authored my book People, Passions, Pastimes, and Pleasures: Staffordshire Figures 1810-1835.  We lost our canine kids in 2007, 2008, and 2009...and our home has not been the same.   Now please welcome the newest member of the Schkolne family.

Johnny Be Goode was born in Wisconsin on March 24, one of a litter of 4 girls and a boy.  All five kids were given names from Beach Boys songs by Amy Kluth of Carefree English Cocker Spaniels. Amy is a devoted breeder of champion show dogs.

JohnnyB  came home yesterday,  Friday, June 4, after I officially adopted him on a day trip to Milwaukee. He and I will be mastering the skills required of a couch-potato house dog...and of course learning all JohnnyB needs to know to help with the next book.

Thought you might like to see this charming whistle, which I came across recently.

Formed as a bright, perky hen, this whistle is only around 3" tall. Whistles such as this are understandably rare. How easy to break them or throw them away, yet this survivor has almost 2 centuries under its belt. If you scroll down to my blog posting of Feb 17, you will see a parrot whistle that I believe came from the same pot bank.

Small items such as whistles really 'pop' among bigger items in a collection. I notice that some collectors seem not to consider anything that is not Substantial in size. Their collections tend to be boring because most of the large figure forms are so well known and they lack charm. But there is endless variety among the smaller figures, and with luck, they can be found at very affordable prices.

What's odd about this figure of St. Sebastian, marked Enoch Wood, that was until recently on the web? It was offered for sale as circa 1784-92, made by Enoch Wood.

The figure is just over 10" tall and impressed on the rear "ENOCH WOOD." 

Enoch Wood (1759-1840) potted on his own from 1783-1790 and marked his wares with his name in that period. From 1791-1818, he was in partnership with James Caldwell; wares marked in that period state WOOD & CALDWELL. After 1818, Enoch Wood was in partnership with his sons, and any mark reflects that relationship.  So Enoch Wood's name appears on its own only between 1783 and 1790.

So why do I not believe this St Sebastian was made by Enoch Wood? Couple of reasons:

1. Enoch Wood marked his wares E. WOOD, not ENOCH WOOD. So the mark we see on the figure is not correct.
2. The enamel colors on this figure are not in the typical palette for the Enoch Wood period. Rather, they exhibit the strong yellows and turquoises occurring more than a century later.

I am sure that if we had a picture of the underneath of this figure, we would see that the undecorated pot is very white--as you would expect of a later figure.

So what really happened here? This figure was made by the Kent factory some time between 1890 and 1962.  The Kent catalog listed this figure, and some editions even illustrated it. I don't believe Kent marked the figure ENOCH WOOD. That was done by someone else, I suspect.

Did Enoch Wood make a figure like this? He certainly did. We know this because  a large shard from very similar figure of St. Sebastian was excavated in Burslem in the 1900s. It was part of a cache that Enoch Wood had buried within the walls of St. Paul's Church in 1828. Over a century later, the time capsule helped us attribute the figure form to Enoch Wood. If this was not proof enough, the shard matches a St. Sebastian figure marked E. WOOD that is in a private collection. Clearly, that figure was made well before 1828--in fact, it was made between 1783 and 1790.

I know of only one other early Staffordshire figure of St. Sebastian. Frankly, despite its rarity, this figure is far from appealing. The original, early figure has impressed on the front S. SEBASTI O.M.  Possibly it was made for the continental market (could someone please tell me what O.M. means??) and perhaps even in its time it was not popular with English consumers.

This story has a good ending. The dealer who had this figure on his site removed it very promptly when he discovered it was not what he had thought it to be. A Prince of a man. He has--temporarily at least--restored my faith in mankind:).

Staffordshire figure collectors can pick from a range of figures that cater to all tastes. If those pretty little gardeners are not your thing, how about these?

What are they, you might ask? Well, a pair of tritons, of course. And what is a triton? If you watched Disney's Little Mermaid II you would know. Or Hall's Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art will tell you that a triton is a merman, half man and half fish, with fins at the hips.  Triton was the son of Neptune and Amphitrite, and in the classics tritons generally escort Neptune and play around in the waves, blowing shell-shaped trumpets. The subject inspired the Wood and Caldwell manufactory to model Tritons in pearlware figure form, sometime between 1791 and 1818--I suspect earlier in this period rather than later.

We attribute our Staffordshire tritons to Wood and Caldwell based on stylistic similarity to that manufactory's wares. Also, marked Wood and Caldwell triton figures are recorded. Falkner, plate XLVIII, shows one with a brass nozzle attached so it serves as a candlestick. One of a pair, it is finished in a bronze enamel that simulates true bronze. Ugly thing, me thinks, but each to his own!

Eliza Meteyard notes triton figure forms were produced by Josiah Wedgwood prior to the formation of the Wood and Caldwell partnership.  Flaxman modeled a triton for Wedgwood in 1775, and such a figure--probably made in basalt--almost certainly inspired the Wood and Caldwell figures.

If you have already read the posting below about Jason and Medea, scroll to the bottom of it to see the pair of porcelain figures, ca. 1780, that relate to our earthenware examples. 

Porcelain figures generally predate the earthenware figures we collect, and in some cases Staffordshire's figure potters mimicked porcelain figures to create cheaper wares. We see this again and again. Let me quickly add that most Staffordshire figures are NOT derived from porcelain models. Instead, they simply mirror everyday life through the eyes of the potters. Of course, porcelain lovers appreciate the refined exquisiteness of porcelain. I like the earthy comfort of pottery, so when I figure is available in both pottery and porcelain, pottery wins out each time, by my reckoning!

The ram groups above let us glimpse at plagiarism at work. Clearly, the porcelain figure group on the right was the design inspiration for the earthenware group made some 60 years later.

We see the same thought process at work with the design of the figures of the Welch Tailor and Wife.

Clearly, the Staffordshire figures are derived from the Derby figures. The Derby figures were themselves copied. The original figures were produced ca. 1740 at Meissen. The story behind the design is rather amusing. Read it in the August 2009 blog posting by clicking here.

My interest in design sources dictates that I look closely at porcelain figures...and on rare occasions I admire them, but never enough to buy one.  I am amazed by the longevity of the designs: the Welch Tailor made in Staffordshire in the 1820s looked just like the one made at Meissen 80 years earlier.

This Derby figure form--an early 19thC example of a group that Derby made in earlier decades--again inspired copying in Staffordshire clay. The theme was a popular one. You can read about it here in my January 2009 blog posting.

The Staffordshire group was a roaring success, and you can find it with varying bases and bocages. Some examples have a spill vase in lieu of a bocage. Every collector should have at least one!

Quite a few Derby figures portraying theatrical characters were made in the 1820s, at the same time as Staffordshire figures looking just like them. Which came first? No way of knowing for sure, but my bet is on Staffordshire. And when it comes to chronicling everyday life as it was then, Staffordshire wins hands down.

Classical figures are SO under-rated. Their quality is frequently glorious, with lovely soft enamels associated with early figures. That most collectors find them 'boring' is a sad reflection on our intellectual capacity, or lack thereof. I too was among the clueless....until I acquired a copy of Hall's Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art. This book made the story that each classical figure tells riveting--most would be R rated by today's standards. The figures became more interesting as I learned about them, and all the little details made sense.  Particularly puzzling was this figure, commonly referred to as "The Sacrifice."

I bought this figure about 2 years ago. I thought the enamels were luscious, but I knew nothing about the subject. My research took me to Peter Bradshaw's book on Derby figures. There I learned that Derby made a pair of 'sacrifice' figures. The male portrays Jason and the female is Medea. They are both modeled at the Altar of Diana. The Derby male appears to have been the prototype of the Staffordshire male we see above, but the female Derby figure seems to have disappeared, and today we don't know what it looks like.

Bradshaw (pp. 179-181) traces the male figure to an engraving by Charles Monnet titled Jason and Medea at the Altar of Diana from ‘Les Metamorphoses d’Ovide’ by L’Abbe Bannier, Paris, 1767-71. I found a copy of this book at the NY Public Library. It was stored off site, so I had to put in a request and return two days later to the Print Room to see the book by appointment. My heart was in my mouth as I carefully paged through, looking for the source engraving. Well, I found it...but, sadly, it bears little resemblance to the figure. The engraving did inspire  a large composite Derby 'sacrifice' group, so perhaps Bradshaw determined that the individual figures were derivative. Who knows? Anyway, it does make sense that the Staffordshire figures depict Jason and Medea at the altar of Diana.
 

The figures, like most classical figures, are usually found on white bases with a decorative line. Encoch Wood made a figure of Medea just like the one above. We know this because of a large shard (interestingly, it is porcelain) excavated from the St Paul's Church, Burslem, site. It was among the wares Enoch Wood deposited there in 1828.  Interestingly, there is more than one model of Jason. He occurs with a different head, as below

I have not seen a different version of Medea--nor have I seen the figure with the beard paired with Medea, so perhaps he was made to stand alone. Time may reveal more!

As mythical figures go, Medea was among the worst. She was Jason's wife and a witch...literally. The only good thing she seems to have done, was help Jason capture the Golden Fleece. When Jason deserted her, she murdered  their children to exact revenge. As a sorceress, she did the unbelievable. There was much draining-and-replacing of blood, and Medea actually rejuvenated a ram, after chopping it into bits. I know we have Jason sacrificing the animal in our figure, but perhaps a blog reader can explain all this to me.

A later addition to this posting:
Andrew Dando has kindly supplied a photograph of a pair of figures from the Chelsea-Derby porcelain manufactory,  c1780.

Andrew's porcelain Jason was clearly the prototype for the Staffordshire figure. As for the companion....well, she seems a little confused.  Her floral garland suggests she is Flora, while the Dove in her hand suggests she might be Venus. My guess is that the modeler had no idea of the identity of Jason's companion, so he improvised.

Photos of showcases at Andrew Dando's Exhibition. Wish I could have been there to take these myself, but thanks to the reader who supplied them. You can visit the Exhibition by clicking here.

Staffordshire's figure potters produced an extraordinary range of wares. And they also made more than their fair share of religious figures. Figures portraying the Madonna and child have never been my 'thing'....but this week two examples popped up that made me change my mind.  Andrew Dando's current Exhibition features a Madonna that is quite a tour de force.

Well, isn't she simply beautiful? Sublime. Notice the traces of the original soft gilded pattern on her blue cloak. You don't often see that because gilding was an expensive touch and it wore away quite easily. Despite being an impressive 23" high, this figure is elegant and not at all clunky. The wording on the base, SANCTA MARIA ORA PRO NOBIS translates to "Holy Mary, pray for us."  It is found within the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary (also known as the Litany of Loreto), originally approved in 1587 by Pope Sixtus V. 

At the other end of the design spectrum is this little Madonna and child, a mere 5" high.

This figure was sent to me by a blog reader who wanted to know what it was. I had never seen this figure before--nor had I seen its base form. At first, I wondered if it was English but after looking at some more photos I was convinced.

Very definitely pearlware, made in Staffordshire circa 1820. And it has all the quirky charm that makes little figures so engaging. As I always tell my lecture audiences, Staffordshire figures provide something for every pocket.

Myrna muses: this figure's form looks rather like Quimper versions of the Madonna. Any chance our potter was inspired by a French figure? Or is the resemblance merely coincidental?

Our family of figures with gray bases is growing.  I doubt you will recall the blog article of March 14 (click to read), but we featured a figure of Spring among the small group of gray-based figures.

Spring now has a companion: Winter. The bases are formed identically and their size is the same. The collector who owns these pieces hopes one day to have the complete set...so shout if you see any more!

I have a soft spot for The Seasons and found these on Aurea Carter's site this week.

I have never seen these forms before. Must admit I like my figures enamel-painted, so I will live in  hope of finding figures that underwent the next stage in the decorative process.

Other news: I have finally finished laboring on my article on John Walton, which will hopefully be published next year. I identified 83 distinct figure forms that occur with the WALTON mark. I am going to move onto enamel-painted Ralph Wood figures next, so if you know of Staffordshire figures that might interest me, please share.

Last but most important, visit Andrew Dando's Exhibition, online from tomorrow, by clicking here. As the pound goes down, pottery in the UK becomes a better and better buy for US collectors, so seize the moment!