I was pleasantly surprised---correction, I was thrilled---when the figure below crossed my path recently. This little man, made in the 1830s, has great presence and stands at a commanding 8.3 inches.  But who might he be?

The figure has excellent provenance, and an old label beneath attests to it previously having been in the stock of that esteemed dealer in English pottery, the late Jonathan Horne. Jonathan's label describes the figure as "a peeler or sailor," but which is he? Wiser heads than mine suggested the figure might be a midshipman, an entry-level officer in the British navy, so let's see if we can settle the question here.

What is a peeler? Today, British police are commonly called "Bobbies’," but originally they were dubbed "Peelers," both names being for Sir Robert Peel (1788 – 1850) who established London's police force in 1829. His officers wore blue tail coats and black top hats, a uniform that was deliberately chosen to ensure they blended in with ordinary folk. Each man carried a wooden rattle to raise the alarm and a wooden truncheon......but this figure carries a sword. Does this rule out his being a policeman? 

But I can't conclude the figure is a Peeler because those intrepid gentlemen apparently always sported coats with long tails, and our figure has a short jacket nipped at the waist. Given his gentlemanly appearance, might he then be a midshipman? 

Midshipmen in the British navy of that day were largely sons of professional men, as well as members of the peerage and landed gentry. Even Prince William, later King William IV, served as a midshipman in his youth. I have spent hours down the rabbit hole of naval uniforms, and I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say that the figure's hat is consistent with him being a midshipman.  ​

The prints below shows a midshipman of 1828 (left) and 1830 (right), and, like the figure, he has a tall hat and a sword. But, unlike the figure, he wears a coat with long tails. Images courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

Notice the white patches on the coat collars. Midshipmen then always had white patches on their coat collars, and our figure lacks those. Also, midshipmen always had coats with tails, as befitted their gentlemanly status, and our figure has a short jacket of the sort you might expect to see on a common sailor. Might the figure instead be a sailor?

Common sailor wore a wide range of headgear, so its not improbably for a sailor to have worn a tall black hat rather like the one worn by a midshipman. Like the figure, the sailor illustrated below has a neckerchief, a tall black hat, and a short jacket. He has no sword, but I note that the figure's sword is short, as was the standard for common sailors then. I have to conclude that the figure is indeed a sailor.

Sailors were plentiful in their day, but this figure is very rare. I know of only one other example, and his trousers were painted with stripes. I was reluctant to base my decision on what may well have been artistic license, but, with hindsight I admit the answer was staring me in the face.
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​I can't attribute this sailor to any specific potter, but I have noticed a small number of figures on similar bases, and I strongly suspect they too are of the 1830s period and from the same pot bank. 

Small pearlware figures in fine condition remain the most elusive of Staffordshire figures. For generations, these little gems have been tossed aside--or tossed out--as fashions and tastes changed, but today collectors are wising up to their worth.

The best things are said to come in small parcels, and the same can often be said of early figures. The problem is that good, small figures are extraordinarily difficult to procure. And true pairs of small figures are nigh impossible. That's why my heart skipped a beat when this true pair of musicians popped onto the site of RTS Antiques. A pretty picture, are they not?

The decoration confirms that they are the truest of pairs and have lived together always.  I have recorded a single example of each form, but I know of no other true pair.

​The male figure is known to me from the little fellow below in our collection. He is made from the same molds as RTS's male figure, but with a bocage added. I bought him over thirty years ago, and I have yet to see another.

I value my perky musician so highly that I placed him on the spine of the dust jacket of my first book, People, Passions, Pastimes, and Pleasure: Staffordshire Figures 1810-1835. I have not yet seen another, and I have assumed that his mate looks like the lady in the pair above. Imagine my surprise when this rather blitzed figure appeared on eBay recently. The bocage has been lost.

I suspect that this lady is my musician's companion, but I must await a better example. But, as it has taken me thirty years to come up with this one, I am running out of time!  

By the way, all the musicians above have impressed numbers in their bases, suggesting Enoch Wood probably made them. The bocage on my male figure is also consistent with that attribution.

If pairs are so difficult to find, imagine the odds of assembling a hunting garniture, such as this one. All the figures are marked WALTON.

If you can find the pair of sportsmen, you are well on your way to assembling the garniture because four animal subjects have been recorded, any one  of which will transform the pair into a garniture. If you are so inclined, RTS Antiques has this rare twosome available.

This has been the most barren of years for early figures, but I am constantly digging for the unusual. Amongst the unrecorded figures I have unearthed is this example of a lady, and, to my mind, she is a candidate for the Ugliest Woman of the Year award.

I was intrigued by the lady holding a book, below. She went through auction described as Faith, and she is in the stock of a dealer, again described as Faith. The problem is that Faith typically holds a cross, whereas this lady clutches a large tome. Some might think it to be a Bible, but I suspect otherwise.

The figure is most probably Metis, the goddess of deep thought and wisdom, or perhaps Calliope, the muse of epic poetry. You can see more on this subject here.

The figure on the left below caught my eye on eBay. She portrays Peace. This is a common enough figure, but for one thing: the head is different. The head on the figure is usually formed like that on the right.
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If the head is indeed a "transplant" from another figure, it has been very well done and it sits quite naturally, Although one or two suspicious little bumps around the neck warrant further investigation, we may have yet another version of this otherwise common figure form.

Finding the unusual makes collecting fun, so enjoy your hunting. And remember to grab fine pairs when you can!

Those of you who collect early figures purely because they are eye-candy will be able to gorge on my latest effort, which includes very sparse text and tons of glorious color images. 

In 1991, Malcolm and Judith Hodkinson published Sherratt? A Natural Family of Staffordshire Figures. Their groundbreaking work included an alphabetical listing of Sherratt models illustrated with small black and white images. In the ensuing thirty-plus years, further models have, of course, come to light, and for that reason I have assembled an updated photo record. It is available as a free download on the BOOKS menu at the top of this page or click here.

I have compiled much of what I have learned about Ralph Wood figures into a notebook, which is available for free download on the BOOKS tab at the top of this page. Ralph Wood was the Father of the British figure making industry, and I find his figures endlessly fascinating. I know many will consider this a nerdy topic, so those wanting only a list of the numbered models should start on page 19.

When there is nothing worth saying, it is always best to keep silent. For that reason, this blog has been quiet these many months. I have already covered so much material here in the past fifteen years, and next to nothing else of note has appeared on the market of late. Admittedly, gorgeous pieces of great rarity do exist, but they seem to be glued to collectors' shelves. The most exciting group to pop up this year is the stunning one below.

The eye-catching bocage on this group is very uncommon, and, best of all, in this instance it is in outstanding condition. Figures with this bocage are few and far between, and when I was working on Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840, I had no basis for attributing them. My gut suggested Walton, but waving the flag for Walton or any other potter is treacherous without hard facts to back up the attribution. As luck would have it, in the last three or so years, two figures with this very bocage have come to light, both MARKED Walton, so the attribution finally stands on terra firma. Shown below, they are a lion and a Widow, both sporting this bocage form and John Walton's mark.

I delve through a lot of junk on the internet each week, always in the hope of finding something new or different. In June, I was tickled to see this cow at auction. At first glance, she is a pretty yet rather ordinary beast, but her name, LADY, impressed on the front makes her special. 

A friend and I exchanged emails, jokingly suggesting names for the companion bull. We only had to wait till September to learn that the companion was a cow rather than a bull, and her name is ANN.

These animals came to auction at the same auction house, three months apart. I assume they came from the same source, and, if that is the case, to my mind splitting them into different lots at the same auction would have been very sad, but placing them in different auctions months apart was stupid and tragic. I am pointing no finger at the auction house because the fault may well lie with the consignor. I do hope that the same bidder acquired both LADY and ANN so they can spend their days side by side once more. 

I am always on the lookout for figures that help me or others complete pairs. The little gardener lady on the left caught my eye recently. She is a humble purchase on Etsy, and, if you own the man alongside, sold by Andrew Dando some years ago, you may want to buy her to complete the pair.

Lastly, I am a little puzzled as to the identity of these two figures. They differ only in the objects that they hold

The figure on the right, above, is thought to be St. Margaret, the pearls she wears being critical to that identification. Below are two other figures of St Margaret.

As the figure in the pink dress on the left also wears pearls, might she too be St. Margaret? I doubt it, but I am out of my depth, so if you know the answer, please shout. 

Sadly, small figures  routinely fly under the radar because collectors all seem to prefer trophy additions to their collections. This little lady might have slipped into oblivion had Andrew Dando not rescued her and brought her to my attention.

The blue-tinged glaze puddling on the base is fabulous, is it not? But the enameled decoration is particulary interesting and strongly reminiscent of that found on Ralph Wood figures. 

​Experienced collectors ALWAYS immediately turn over a figure to scrutinize the underneath, which can reveal a wealth of nuanced information. In this case it delivered an added surprise: an unrecorded mark!

"Wood." The first name that comes to mind is that of Ralph Wood, the father of English figure pottery, who was active as a potter from 1782 to 1795. Might he have made this figure?

The combination of rainbow colors on the mound beneath the figure is very, very typical of Ralph Wood, and I have until now only seen mounds colored thus on figures with a Ralph Wood attribution

Also, the lady's face is painted in a typical, delicate Ralph Wood style. If you organize figures into groups by their pot bank of origin, there is a striking family resemblance within each group. A Neale face is very different from a Lakin & Poole face or a Ralph Wood face. The difference sometimes is in the modeling, but it is very often in the decoration. Each manufacturer had a "house style" that painters followed.

By now we all know that when Ralph Wood's painters placed lines around bases, the lines banded three sides of each base, with the back typically left plain. On this figure, the line is on one side only. Make of it this what you will. Did the painter intend placing more lines? Did he get confused? Was it a Monday--a day that invariably started with a hangover? Who knows? 

Then there is the manner in which the base was formed. Looked at from beneath, it has rounded internal corners. Nearly all Ralph Wood bases are formed in this manner, whereas the bases of figures made by Wood's contemporaries are usually formed differently.

And finally there is the mark itself. Ralph Wood consistently impressed the mark into the clay bodies of his figures, but this mark is painted. Wood's painters used tiny red letters to title very many figures, and the "Wood" mark is in tiny red letters. However, the letters are different to the "house style" used for Ralph Wood titles. Note the "W" consists of two Vs, and the "d" has a long curly handle. 

What other Wood might have made this figure? The names of Enoch Wood and John Wood pop to mind. For about twenty years, a whacky theory credited them with making all the Ralph Wood figures---yes, even those with Ralph Wood's name impressed into their clay bodies! Fortunately, that theory has been resoundingly debunked, but museums that lack knowledgable curatorial staff (and updated libraries, it seems) persist in stupidly crediting Ralph Wood figures to Ralph's cousin Enoch Wood or to his brother John Wood. But there is no evidence that John Wood made any figures at all. Enoch Wood made figures, but they are in a very different style to the little lady in question.

Bottom line is that my heart tells me that this is a Ralph Wood figure. I would bet money on it if I could--and I am not a betting person. But my head must rule, and I admit that there is inadequate evidence for a water-tight attribution. I can't tell you how much time I have spent looking at her and pondering. She has added enormously to my collecting pleasure. 

By the way, the molds for this figure, like other Ralph Wood molds, circulated in the Potteries for decades, and other potters made their own versions. Not one has a single Ralph Wood attribute.

Image at bottom right is courtesy of Andrew Dando.

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) was the Protestant general who overthrew England’s ruler, King Charles I (1600-1649). A deeply religious man, Cromwell believed God led him to victory, so I guess he also thought God wanted him to sign King Charles’s death warrant, and the unfortunate monarch succumbed to the executioner’s sword. The story of the rise and fall of England’s short-lived Commonwealth is well known, so I shan’t belabor it here, but Cromwell and King Charles resurfaced in English figure pottery well over a century later, standing side by side on this huge plaque. Breathtakingly beautiful, it measures almost fourteen inches across.
 
A plaque in a blog devoted to figures may surprise you, but plaques with relief figural forms are, to my mind, figures too. I find them particularly gorgeous because light dances across their glazed flat surfaces in a way that just is not possible on conventional figures. And when the plaque is as large as this one, the result is mesmerizing.
 
Each plaque, like each figure, tells a story, but this plaque is a brain teaser that raises numerous questions. Why give Cromwell a passing thought some 160 years after his death? When King Charles II reclaimed the throne his father had relinquished, he disinterred Cromwell’s body, publicly hanged and then beheaded it, and placed the head on a spike for all to see. But, as modern day protestors have yet to learn, you cannot erase history, and in time Staffordshire potters turned their attention to Cromwell and his ill-fated victim.   

​What probably got the potters’ creative juices flowing was this engraving of Cromwell after a drawing by Samuel Wale, the eighteenth century historical painter and book illustrator. It appeared in George Frederick Raymond’s “A New, Universal and Impartial History of England” that was first published in serial form in the late 1780s.

​Also courtesy of Samuel Wale  is this engraving of King Charles, orb and scepter in his regal hands and his head still upon his shoulders. It clearly is the design source for figure of Charles on the plaque.

​What of the classical maidens to either  side of the king and his persecutor? Collectors today overlook classical figures, but, to my mind, they are endlessly fascinating, and the damsels on this plaque are no exception.

​The figure on the left is the sea nymph Galatea. The raised scarf is the give-away because Galatea is routinely portrayed in art with a raised scarf. Her story goes like this: Galatea, fleeing from her jealous lover, travelled on the ocean in a shell drawn by sea creatures, and her scarf caught the wind and acted as a sail. On the plaque, Galatea, balancing on her shell, taps Charles on the shoulder, signaling the need to flee. 

On the underglaze plaque below, you see a fuller version of Galatea's tale. ​

​The same motif also occurs on the plaque below, where Paris awards the apple to Aphrodite. It was probably inspired by a painting, perhaps Botticelli’s beautiful portrayal of the Judgment of Paris. The potter skillfully reworked the motif used for Aphrodite so that the female figure stood alone, apple in hand…and presto! she became Eris. Or perhaps it was the other way around, and the potter transformed Eris into Aphrodite.

What about the animals in the foreground of the plaque? I am somewhat stumped. Perhaps the birds are doves, signifying a hope for peace. The huge serpent surely symbolizes evil, no doubt a reference to Cromwell’s dastardly deeds. As for the dog, apparently sleeping and oblivious to all around him, I have no idea---but I shall be thinking about it. I notice that the same dog is on the plaque of the Judgment of Paris, so perhaps the potter included it simply because he had a mould at hand.
 
So the King, the man who usurped England’s throne, discord, and flight, all in one eyeful. This plaque packs a powerful punch.

PS:
​For completeness, I add that small pair of underglaze decorated plaques in the Wolverhampton Museum & Art Gallery is illustrated in Lewis, Pratt Ware, pp. 114-115. One has a relief of Cromwell, another of King Charles. The plaques are not accessible on the museum's web site. I surmise that these little treasures, like so many others, are buried and forgotten in museum storage.
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I have updated my three volumes of my eBook, Obsession, to reflect changes in our collection and advances in my knowledge. The book is available for free download on my Books menu on this site. 

As 2021 fades with a whimper, I look back on the extraordinary figures that have crossed my path. The variety that emanated from Staffordshire kilns is seemingly endless.  I confine my collection to  enamel-painted figures. If not, I would have had to bid on this remarkable underglaze-decorated figure of Roger Giles.

Roger Giles was a Devonshire schoolteacher and jack-of-all-trades. His claim to fame rests is that he advertised for sale fresh eggs “new laid by him every day”. Staffordshire figure potters fashioned crudely comical figures of a squatting gentleman that are said to represent Giles laying those eggs. They were made well into the Victorian era, and nasty fake-similes persist today, but a pre-1840 Roger Giles can prove elusive. Add to that, some can be a tad too vulgar for my taste.

Below is my Roger Giles, made by the "Sherratt" pot bank. Like others of his ilk, he has holes in his hat, so perhaps he was intended as a pepper pot or hat pin holder. Like most, he is about 4.5 inches tall--significantly smaller than the gentleman at the top of this post. At a good 8 inches, that Roger Giles is by  far the biggest I have seen, and the top of his head is removable (is he a jar?). He oozes personality, and I am pleased he has found a home in a remarkably interesting and fine collection. 

 These same Dale features (and others) are apparent on the spill vase below. (See Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840, vol.1 for Dale attributes.)

John Dale was active as a potter from 1818, and Apollo looks like a circa 1820s figure. Dale made other classical figures in the same style (with various but typical Dale bocages and bases), as recorded in Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840, vol.4. From top left they Aesculapius, Bacchus, Venus, Juno, and Mercury. Today, all are particularly rare and are known from one or two examples at most. Click each image to enlarge.

Clearly there was a significant market for classical figures in the 1820s, yet collectors tend to relegate those figures to earlier decades. How wrong that would be, and a message from the grave hammers home that lesson. Let me explain.

​The enamels on this figure group of Peace below suggest it was made in the 1790s. On the base are a helmet and other implements of war as well as a broken chain, all of which symbolize the fight for freedom. The male figure holds a shield decorated with the fleur-de-lys of the French monarchy, and he is laying down his arms at the feet of the the female, who is Peace. She is offering him a Liberty bonnet. Clasped hands of fraternity are on the obelisk, so the group has been interpreted as suggesting or commemorating a peaceful resolution of the French Revolution. Given that, a date in the 1790s seems appropriate for this group.

As the French revolution was finite, one would have expected this model to have outlived its usefulness by 1800. Would you even consider dating an example to the 1820s? No? Think again! Fast forward to 1974, and this unpainted group, from the same molds, was unearthed in Staffordshire. (The helmet probably went the way of the lady's arm!)

The potter Enoch Wood was a great recorder of the events of his day. For that purpose, he buried caches of his pottery for future historians to find. When the foundation of St. Paul's Church, Burslem, was laid in 1828, Wood left a cache beneath it. Included was this group of Peace. A demolition contractor unearthed it in 1974, and  it came to auction last year. No saying for certain when it was made, but I strongly suspect it was made in the 1820s rather than the 1790s.

​Also in the cache was a shard corresponding to a figure of Medea, as seen below. Again, it seems reasonable to conclude that as the shard was made in the 1820s, the figure may have been made then too. While there is no hard line in the sand, classical figures on square bases with a line are assumed to predate 1815.

Enoch Wood's legacy does not end there. In 1938, a cache of his wares was unearthed beneath the Burslem Old Town Hall. From their subject matter, they date to the 1820s. Among them were shards of classical figures of Bacchus and Ariadne that, like Medea, we might have relegated to an earlier period based on their bases, their designs, and their subject matter. The shards are below. Alongside the shard of Ariadne is a figure corresponding to it.

Does that mean that all examples of Bacchus and Ariadne from these molds date to the 1820s? Not at all. Rather, it means that we have to broaden our time horizon. We must look beyond square bases to determine a date.

The mode of decoration and the colors of the enamels can be very helpful. The soft turquoise enamel on Ariadne was in great favor in the 1790s, but that is not enough to assign a date with confidence. Turquoise had no sell-by date, and it certainly may have been used for a lot longer.

I only know of three examples of the large group of Peace: the two shown above, and the one below. I apologize for the partial photo, but the full image is lost somewhere in my archive. 

Because it is uncolored, the details of the modeling are particularly crisp. But, as there are no enamels to guide dating (however unreliable or reliable that might be) we are up the creek without a paddle. This group could have been made at any time from the 1790s into the late 1820s. 

​We rely on multiple features to support an attribution, but we tend to be rather gung-ho about dating. I intend being very much more circumspect henceforth. It bothers me that collectors and dealers alike consistently pull the dates of their pieces forward in the belief that an earlier dates equates with greater worth. That is simply ridiculous. Let us all practice greater caution in the new year.

PS. Andrew Dando has a lovely little "Sherratt" Roger Giles in stock currently. Like mine, shown above but in a red coat. 

​I know there is a distinct market for Americana, but I was still surprised to see the battered bust fetch just over $4,000 with charges at Neal Auction Company. But for the title, it would not have fetched $400. I will admit that the price bothered me. Such silly money for a vastly inferior object just because of the name.  But this was only the beginning of the story.
 
Fast forward a month or two, and an identical bust came up for sale at Bonhams, London. I say identical, but there were several differences. The Bonhams bust was in much better condition, but it lacked a title. Bonhams’ experts—no doubt aware of the Jackson bust—had nonetheless identified their bust as Napoleon modeled as First Consul.  
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