I have just launched a new site as a means of sharing my archive with you. It is at earlystaffordshirefigures.com.

I seem to be unable to read my own writing, so I am sure you will find errors aplenty. Please tell me. All corrections will be appreciated, as will any material that I can add to the site.

In my June blog article, I said that the Wedgwood & Co. Farnese Flora featured and shown again above is the only figure I know of with the Wedgwood & Co. mark. Oops! In Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840, Volume 4, I show a large group of Eros tussling with Anteros marked in the same way. If only I could remember everything I write! At any event, the group, shown below is marked Wedgwood & Co.---AND it is on the same base as Farnese Flora. ​

Also on that same base and bearing the Wedgwood & Co. mark is this large Fortitude.

These are the only figures I have recorded with the Wedgwood & Co. mark, rather than the usual Wedgwood mark. All three stand on the same base, and this base is not seen on figures merely marked Wedgwood. Clearly, this base came into use during the period of Wedgwood's Knottingley-based partnership, spanning an eighteen month period from 1798-99.

In the past weeks, a number of interesting early Staffordshire pottery figures have crossed my path. Firstly, I was beyond excited to see the little enamel-painted figure of a shepherdess below. She clearly is a Ralph Wood figure, but I had not seen one like her hitherto.

​The same figure was also made decorated with colored glazes, as you see in the little shepherdess alongside. Ralph Wood used both techniques because in his time enamels were surpassing colored glazes in popularity.

​Our shepherdess model seems to be an adaptation of this Ralph Wood figure impressed "87" that you see alongside. Ralph Wood was impressively skilled at adapting his models, I have learned. 

Have you noticed that the enamel-painted shepherdess is titled Hay Maker?--but a hay maker she is not! In any event, Ralph Wood already had two versions of the hay maker model, as shown in these two figures. The two hay makers are essentially the same, but their heads differ. Go figure!

The second interesting thing that crossed my path recently was this stunning pair of figures of Elijah and the Widow. Don't yawn, please. I know figures of Elijah and the Widow are rather commonplace and can be dreary, and, for that reason, I have never owned a pair. But I did succumb and buy this pair, which I attribute to Lakin & Poole (active 1791-1796).

This pair was ridiculously cheap, and, far from rejoicing at my bargain, I was saddened to think that a fine pair of figures well over two centuries old and in very good condition, commanded this little respect. Sadly, they are not "cute," and the cuteness factor cannot be underestimated in our shallow market. 

I have found the odd lone widow of this form before, but one Elijah--also Frank Falkner in his "Wood Family of Burslem" shows a color glazed Elijah from these molds and attributes it to Ralph Wood. Falkner may well be right. Ralph Wood may have modeled these figures. The figures themselves do not have the typical Lakin & Poole facial features, so perhaps the pot bank acquired the molds from an outside source. 

Thirdly, I noticed a truly yummy figure of Autum that appears to be Lakin & Poole (or, at any rate, is definitely of late eighteenth-century manufacture), and it set my mind wandering on the topic of figures of Seasons.

Figures of the Seasons in this style were made from the eighteenth century, as evidenced by a pair with the mark of P&F Warburton in The Potteries Museum. Because  Enoch Wood, in particular, seems to have flooded the market with them, we tend to think of Seasons of this form as being boring, but think again. Very many makers made them, and special examples do occur.

I think these two figures are especially attractive examples, and I would enjoy them in my collection.

Similarly, this lone "Sherratt" figure of Spring is to die for. As she is the only recorded "Sherratt" Season, the odds of making a set are remote, but would you rather have a gorgeous single figure or a ho-hum set?

I guess the message for today is that  Staffordshire figures never fail to surprise. Think Elijah and the Widow or a lone season are boring? Think again! Do you think you know what the Ralph Wood hay maker looks like? Well, sometimes she looks remarkably different, as we have seen in this posting. It is the thrill of discovering the unexpected  that makes collecting a endlessly rewarding.

I first saw this fabulous figure when it came to auction in spring 2011. At 19.5 inches in height, she is hard to miss! I wrote about her on this blog then for several reasons. First, she is gorgeous; second, she is unrecorded; third, I had no idea who she was and hoped one of my readers might supply the answer; and fourth, she has a maker’s mark, WEDGWOOD & CO. not otherwise recorded on a figure. 

Farnese Flora has quite a story. This colossal Roman marble statue  entered modern history in 1540, when she was found in Rome--or at least her body was, for her head, arms, feet, and plinth are relatively modern additions. She was placed in an unrestored condition  in the Palazzo Faranese in Rome, alongside a statue of a female figure holding fruit and flowers. The two ladies were thought to be muses, but the figure with the fruit and flowers was renamed Flora. Then, some time between 1550 and 1561, the damaged figure was restored  to be Flora too--the "logic" was that the pair of Floras would stand as companions to a pair of Hercules figures in the palace’s courtyard. Either at that time or at a somewhat later date, restorers retooled one side of the chiton to expose the right breast, creating a sensual affects that enhanced the statue’s erotic appeal. Eighteenth-century critics later suggested the restoration as Flora had been incorrect and speculated that the figure should have been one of the Muses or Hours, or perhaps Hope, or Victory,  but faced with no convincing evidence, Flora she remained.

​Today Flora can be seen in Naples’s Museo Nazionale, still known as Farnese Flora but described as a Roman copy of a Greek marble of Aphrodite. Over the centuries, Farnese Flora has been much admired for her proverbial beauty, and in particular the exquisite drapery. At around eleven feet tall, her grace and delicacy contrast sharply with her enormity. She has been drawn and copied at reduced scales in materials as varied as ivory, terracotta, marble, lead, and bronze. Most famous is John Michael Rysbrack’s life-size marble copy created in the eighteenth century for the Pantheon at Stourhead. 

Today, Farnes Flora looks quite different, and, to my mind, her beauty has faded. That’s because in around 1796 her restored body parts were replaced, and she acquired a new and different head. Also, her left arm and hand holding a garland were replaced; the new hand, positioned differently, now holds a posy, which  looks quite awkward. 

The irony of my purchase does not escape me. A perfectionist by nature, I am far too picky about restoration, which, if necessary must be both ethical and correct. My Wedgwood Farnese Flora is in unrestored condition, but, at heart she is a copy of a statue that is not only restored but also  reworked. Add to that, the statue is, at best, a Roman copy of a Greek statue. In two thousand years, will collectors want restored and reworked Asian copies of the Staffordshire figures that currently dot the market? I hope not! 

Today, our Farnese Flora resides happily in our home, and I remain puzzled that she has gone through auction, probably many times, without anyone pinning a name to her. You might expect auction house “experts” to have had some awareness of her form, which was so celebrated in its day that umpteen images of Farnese Flora adorn the decorative arts landscape. ​

​Of all small antique Staffordshire pottery figures, those of animals command a price premium. We collectors do cartwheels at the prospect of tucking a petite  feline,  mouse, or elephant onto our shelves. But what of bears? When it comes to bears, or at least enamel-painted bears, there is a gaping deficit. That's because only two models are known. One is in the Brighton Museum's Willett Collection, and I have always thought that tiny treasure to be unique. Wrong again! To my delight, another crossed my path recently.

This sweet little fella can't be more than three inches across. Yummy, is he not? But I mentioned two enamel-painted bear models. What of the other? Alas, I have yet to see the other in person, but I know it from an old auction catalog image.

All other stand-alone bears seem to have been decorated under the glaze in the limited range of colors available for this coloring technique. They tend to be cheap little trinkets...or they were cheap at the time they were made. Some can be quite crude.

Usually, I only buy enamel-painted figures, but the little bear below, decorated in underglaze colors, caught my eye and now lives on my shelves.

The mother of all bears is the beauty from John Howard's archive that now resides with a lucky collector. Is it not gorgeous? I drooled over it for some time, but, as I said, my emphasis is on enamel-painted figures, and I must stay focused.

Coming back down to earth, I noticed this sweetie at Hertford Avenue Antiques on eBay. The modeling is so very sharp. I am not sure if it is decorated in underglaze colors or running glaze....the former, I suspect.

Martyn Edgell has a somewhat similar underglaze-decorated bear that has more personality than we associated with the run-of-the-mill lumpy, bumpy, ill-defined bears decorated in this manner

Whether you like cuddly-looking teddy-bear-like bears or fiercer models, there is an early Staffordshire bear that is ideal for your collection. The only model I personally detest is the large bear usually found in the white that was used as a shop window advertisement of sorts.

But if you like chunky white polar bears, don't let my distaste for this model stop you. Collecting is a very personal thing, and the world would be a dull place if we all wanted the same objects.

Building a fine collection of antique Staffordshire pottery figures cannot be accomplished quickly, even with the deepest of pockets. It requires knowing what your collection needs and patiently waiting for it. I fare well on the knowledge side of the equation, but patience is definitely not my strong suit! Perhaps I should have collected something else, but there is no knowing where love sends you, and my passion for early figures has repeatedly made me wait for years for a figure on my Most Wanted List.

In around 2004, I began a quest to build a pearlware hunting garniture made by the potter John Walton.  I had seen such a rarity in one of the exhibition catalogs published by the late dealer Jonathan Horne.

As you see from this rather gritty old image of Jonathan's garniture, the key components are the sportsmen to either side. In this case, the other two elements are dogs...but more on that later. All the pieces bear the banner mark of John Walton on the reverse.

In 2004, my good friend Nick Burton bought me a very fine Walton pearlware sportsman with dog, just like the figure on the left of Jonathan's garniture.

I well recall Nick's excitement and pleasure in securing this little figure. He loves sporting subjects, and in this case the quality was what he would have described as screamingly good---the great full bocage is glorious, is it not?.

With this acquisition, my hunt for other garniture figures began, and slowly I secured a dog (thanks to a good collector friend who sold me one from his collection) and a rabbit (no thanks to a member of the trade who expected to be rewarded if he sat out the auction!). Thirteen long years later, my garniture looked like this:

Each of these pieces is marked Walton on the reverse....but clearly, I needed the sportsman on the right for the garniture to please the eye. The sportsman on the right is, unlike the other sportsman, made without a dog. Much as I wanted one, I just couldn't buy one. It wasn't that the figure was too expensive or that condition issues stopped me from purchasing. Rather, one just was not available. Then, last month I got lucky when a lovely example came up at auction, and I stumbled out of bed in the middle of the night to bid on it.

My garniture is now pleasing to my eye, but is it complete? Truth is that there are two other figures that could be added to it. One comprises two small dogs (as seen in Jonathan Horne's garniture) and the other comprises birds. I know of only two other garnitures, and these little figures are in one or other of those garnitures. In other words, all three garnitures are a little different, but all have the same two sportsmen anchoring their composition. And all have each and every figure marked WALTON.

​And that brings me to the next twist in this tale. Within weeks of buying my long-awaited sportsman, I became aware of another virtually identical sportsman looking for a new owner. Strangely, it was not marked, even though it is almost a clone of my marked Walton example.

There is no doubt in my mind that John Walton made the unmarked figure above, but the lack of a mark puzzles me. The mark is not something that was added to the complete figure. Rather, it is integral to the base mold. In other words, Walton must have had two base molds, one marked and one unmarked.

The existence of this unmarked-but-certainly-Walton figure confirms my belief that Walton made many unmarked figures----but identifying them with certainty remains a problem.

Staffordshire figures are like buses: one never comes when you want it, and then they come in twos or threes. So it was with this sportsman. Had I seen the unmarked sportsman first, I certainly would have bought it to complete the garniture. Instead, this splendid figure awaits a discriminating home, and it can currently be seen on eBay, item 292104832139. The same seller also has a fabulous tree grafter, most unusual in that the large full bocage (almost always lost or badly damaged) is intact. All his figures can be seen in his eBay store, Hertford Avenue Antiques. Because the supply of fine figures seems to be drying up, I am over the moon at finding a new seller with figures of this caliber.

I am a sucker for Staffordshire pottery figures of dandies--and, while I am admitting my susceptibilities, I must add that I also get a thrill from finding an unrecorded figure, even more so if it has a maker's mark! All this came together recently in this tiny pair of dandies. While the form is not partticularly unusual, the fact that the figure has the rare mark of the potter Charles Tittensor makes it very special. Until it turned up, I had no idea that Tittensor made tiny dandies.

I happen to have another pair of dandies made from the very same molds (but made without a bocage.)  As you see below, that pair has SALT, the mark of Ralph Salt, impressed on the reverse.

We know that potters made figures from common mold forms, so it is not surprising that both Tittensor and Salt made look-alike tiny dandies. But the instant I glimpsed the Tittensor couple, I knew they were made by Tittensor, even before seeing the mark. The clue is in three of the four little flowers. I show one  below.

The flowers have twelve petals (six slightly longer ones alternating with six slightly shorter ones.) Both the potters John Dale and Charles Tittensor used this distinctive flower form, but the dandies I discovered are quite atypical of Dale---in any event, I have already recorded a small pair that I attribute to Dale (below). By process of elimination, I concluded Tittensor made the pair at the top of this post, and, of course, the mark on the back confirmed my conclusion.

The Tittensor dandies are an important addition to my records because this tiny pair brings to five the number of marked Tittensor enamel-painted figures on record (in addition to an enamel-painted bust of Czar Alexander). Below are the others four. The little deer is in the Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent, and the remaining figures are in two private collections.

As you see, all but one of these marked Tittensor figures have bocages, and the bocage flower is consistently that distinctive twelve-petalled flower.

Tittensor is better known for figures decorated in underglaze colors. Although they are rare, these figures are distinctive for their crude style, which is markedly different from the effect of the enamel-painted figures. Below is a typical Tittensor underglaze figure group. Everything about it is in sharp contrast to the enamel-painted Tittensor figures. Even  the bocage flowers are quite different.

The Tittensor enamel-painted and underglaze-decorated figures are so different that it is tempting to think that there were two Tittensors at work. I don't believe this is the explanation. Rather, I believe Tittensor changed his style at some point in his career, abandoning underglaze figures to instead make the enamel-painted figures the market came to prefer.

Of course, it's possible that Tittensor made both types of figures simultaneoulsy, but I think it more likely that his decorating style evolved to meet market tastes. We shall never know the truth. If you want to know more about Tittensore, please look at Paul Tittensor's site documenting the work of his ancestor.

The pearlware figure of a Jewish peddler shown below is very rare. I shouldn't imagine that it was the most commercially popular Staffordshire figure in its time because, although interesting, it is not particularly pretty. Yes, I know: the title is mis-spelled, and the subject is far from "politically correct," but the figure nonetheless remains a fascinating peep into the past. 

As you see, the BY A VACH figure was made titled (I have noted two titled examples) and untitled (I have recorded only one of these) in enamel colors. Recently, I was surprised to notice the same figure, but in underglaze colors in a Pratt palette, coming up at auction. This is the only underglaze colored example that I have seen. 

In decades past, figures were valued for their social and historical importance. For just this reason, Henry Willett more than a century ago added a BY A VACH figure, the first one shown above, to his collection, which now resides in the Brighton and Hove Museums. Other collectors in the twentieth century similarly prized figures that they could link to particular pot banks or to particular historical events or social trends. Alas, it is not so today. Only one thing counts for today's "collectors": the figure must be pretty. Eye-candy rules across the board in decorative arts. I am told it is easier to sell attractive silver plate than it is to sell silver  because plate items will be better priced....and the look is all that really counts. How low we have sunk!

So, given the dense ignorance that pervades the collecting world AND that "cute" and "pretty" have become collectors' yardsticks, where does that leave the state of collecting? Sad to say, I firmly believe that if John Howard, our leading Staffordshire figure dealer, were to place a reproduction recently-made-in-Asia Wombwell's menagerie on his site, someone deeming it "cute" would buy it at a hefty price.  In fact, I suspect that collectors of that sort would grab the reproduction menagerie over the Real Thing with a visible chip or two!

American collectors to a large extent drive the market for collecting early figures, and most American collectors, sadly, insist on their figures looking perfect. There is little tolerance for imperfection, little concern about the amount of restoration, just a relentless determination to fill shelves with pretty objects. I have seen several collections in the UK as well as one or two in the US where the figures have been bought without too much concern for their condition. A  certain honesty pervades those collections, and I hope that the underglaze Jewish peddler, with his sedate colors and his damaged hand, finds an appreciative home with a true collector.

P.S. I apologize for the lapse in updating this blog, but there are over nine years of old entries that you can browse. In future, I will update at least once a month, always by the second Tuesday of the month.

Omitting John Howard's fabulous antique Staffordshire pottery bust of Princess Charlotte from my last blog posting was a major oversight, so I show it below.
​(Picture from John's current stock)

This bust captures Charlotte as she was--not a dainty princess at all! Had she survived child birth, I fear this large rather coarse lass might not have lived up to the public's image of her. The bust, on the other hand, is really rare and rather special and won't disappoint The only other like it that I have seen is in the Brighton Museum's Willett Collection. Oddly enough, I have noted a slightly different bust of Charloote, below, that is clearly from different molds.

What of Charlotte's husband of short duration, Prince Leopold? We see him with her in this pair of porcelaneous busts made by John and Richard Riley, active from 1802 to 1828.