Dating an early pearlware figure is not simple. Admittedly, a maker's mark can be very helpful on a Staffordshire figure. Because the figures below bear the mark of Ralph Wood, who worked from around 1782 until his death in 1796, we can date these figures in this narrow time frame. These and other marked figures of this period allows us to draw conclusions that guide in dating unmarked figures made before 1800.
Particularly noteworthy are the soft enamel colors on early figures. Absent are the harsher greens that came about after 1800 when chromium (discovered in 1797) was introduced into the enamel palette.
While the earliest (1780-1800) figures are quite easy to tell apart, so are the latest ones. The "cheap and cheerful" little figures made for the lower end of the market seem to fall quite happily in the 1820-1835 period
But figures made in the inbetween years are more difficult to date. Was the exquisite pair of gardeners below made in 1815, 1825, or even 1835? I really don't know. We can't assume that there was a general decline in quality over the years because I have seen fine figures that I can date with precision into the 1830s.
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Unlike the Ralph Wood figures, not all marked figures are that easy to date. The most frequently found mark is that of John Walton....but, believe it or not, we are clueless as to the time period over which Walton worked. It is thought he may have potted from as early as 1806 (but that is far from certain) until around 1835.
I tend to think the marked figure of Spring on the left is an earlier Walton figure. There is a refinement about it that I associate with the earliest figures, but perhaps this is a leap of faith on my part.
Alongside is the only marked Walton figure that I can date with any precision. The pugilists Spring and Langan fought in 1824, so this figure group was made around that year. But it doesn't give a single clue to help date other figures. And again, it is particularly refined. If it were not linked to a datable event, I might have been tempted to stick an earlier date on it!
| TENDERNESS, again marked Walton, could have been made in 1815 or 1830. Figures on the Tenderness theme were made from the 1700s (examples can be definitely attributed to Ralph Wood) until much later--probably into the 1830s. |  |
When a figure portrays a real event, we can date the figure with some precision. Thus, figures associated with the Red Barn Murder could not have been made in 1820 because the murder occurred in 1827. For this reason, I was ecstatic many years ago to unearth the story of the tragic events in 1834, when a lion and tiger escaped from Wombwell's menagerie and killed four people. That information helped me date the figures shown below to pretty close to 1834. As you look at the figures--one titled MENAGERIE--it makes perfect sense! As the sole news account of the event tells, the victims included a mother with a child. And, as the figures teach us, one of the victims was a black man.
Till now, we have been looking at the vexing problems of dating enamel-painted figures--all painted on top of the glaze in a wide range of colors. Let's turn for a moment to talk about figures that are decorated UNDER the glaze. Their color palette is very limited and it is generally thought that this mode of decorating was displaced over the years by pretty enamels.
An under glaze figure will generally be dated between 1790 and 1820. After that, under-glaze decorating is thought to have gone away. The pretty pair alongside is courtesy of John Howard's archive.
Given the prevailing wisdom (or lack thereof) on dating under-glaze figures, it is not surprising that Jonathan Horne dated the under-glaze figure below of a tiger to circa 1800 when he included in in one of his much-awaited exhibitions in the early 1980s. But we now know that the figure must have been made circa 1834, at the time of the menagerie deaths.
You may have noticed that the tiger and man come from the same/very similar figure molds as the large enamel-painted tiger shown in the slideshow above (that figure is in the Potteries Museum).
And to hammer home my point yet again, here is another under-glaze colored figure on the very same 1834 theme.
I could go on to reinforce this point, but it is enough for one day. Next time you see a lovely underglaze figure, don't let the primitive nature of its coloring delude you into thinking it predates similar enamel-painted figures. As we now know, for a long time, these techniques co-existed, and contributed to the richness and variety we all enjoy in our collections today.
