Early Staffordshire figures fascinate me because they give  glimpses of the past that we would not otherwise see. Remember, these figures were made in the days before photography, and, for that reason, they capture a host of everyday activities that are often unrecorded. Case in point is this little figure of a boy selling rabbits and eggs. "Rabbit Boy," as I call him, takes us back to an era before refrigeration, way before one-click-Internet ordering. In those far off days, rabbits were sold in the streets, where working people and shop keepers purchased them for their flesh and fur. Because of perishability, street trade in rabbits was negligible over the summer months, but it picked up in the fall, when the rabbit’s fur is thickest. 

Rabbit Boy stands on a base associated with Enoch Wood AND the figure matches an excavated Enoch Wood figure at The Potteries Museum. For that reason, I attribute him to Enoch Wood.

The companion figure--maybe the two were intended as a pair but maybe they were intended as singles--is this lady vendor selling Lord-knows-what. It seems reasonable to think that she too was made by Enoch Wood.

I really like this pair of figures. They are very clean and sharp and eye-catching. The pair was also made with bocages, and I find them less appealing---in large part because they so frequently have bocage condition issues. 

I suspect the bocage models were made slightly later than the pair without bocages. The bocages are typical of Enoch Wood. Again, the boy can be attributed to Enoch Wood, and indeed a bocage of this very form is among the Enoch Wood shards at The Potteries Museum. The girl's bocage is largely restored, but I think that she too is probably by Enoch Wood.

Lest you think figures of this form are always by Enoch Wood, look at the Rabbit Boy on the left. The bocage tells me that some other pot bank made him. In this case, I have linked the figure to the Straw Flower Group described in Vol. 1 of Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840.

I was intrigued by the example below, currently on John Howard's site. Here we have the same figure model in a distinctly Pratt palette.

I generally prefer enamel-painted figures to Pratt figures, but I must admit this Pratt is superb. Fantastic modeling! Look at the rabbit and the detail on the basket--and of course that cute dog and the big flowers all combine to make this quite stunning. This figure seems to use different molds than were used for the enamel-painted examples.In this era of no-hold-barred plagiarism, potters quite freely copied each other's figure models. There is no knowing which version of Rabbit Boy came first, but if I had to wager, I would bet on the Pratt model being the precursor to the Enoch Wood models. But then again, we will never really know.

I have had several emails today about this tithe pig group that sold on eBay last night--so here goes with yet another blog posting for this day!  The questions center on price, which is not surprising since this group fetched $3700.  Was this silly money? No, no, no, and no again! If the group is as lovely as it looks in the photo, it was a very fair price. I would not have been surprised to see the group go through the $4000 mark.

Was this a case of one crazy bidder chasing another? No, it was not. Rather, there were two close underbidders, as well as some serious mid-level bidding.

In building my collection, I have always bought ordinary subjects only when they are of stunning quality--and I have always been more than ready to pay the price premium for that quality. I thought I was a lone soul here, but clearly, other people felt the same way on eBay last night. Reassuring to know that there are others with my mindset.

A tithe pig group is a relatively ordinary---or at least well-known---figure model. There are umpteen varieties. So if you want one, you should try to find the very best one you can find.  I have one that I bought with just this mindset many years ago, and last night other collectors did the same thing. Congratulations to the new owner. His/her new acquisition will give him/her a life-time of pleasure, while the price will fade from memory.

PS:
This tithe pig group is attributable to the Leather Leaf Group. 
See Vol. 1 of Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840 for info on Leather Leaf attribution.
Vol. 2 has a chapter showing multiple tithe pig models.

When our family came to America in 1978, we bought with our oh-so limited dollars a VERY used VW Beetle. Then the design was already 40 years old, but, remarkably, that same design just keeps on trucking! Today, we still see VW Beetles on the road, and the car has become an automotive legend. The best keeps on getting better, or at the very least it survives, and so it is in the world of figure design too.

This little figure at auction this week piqued my interest. Made around 1825, he is about 40 years later than some others of his ilk--and I have hitherto not seen him on a pink luster base.  The earliest pottery examples of this figure model are those made by Ralph Wood circa 1785, and the figure below, titled Clown, is a good example.

Clown is of the same form as the first example on a pink luster base. The title is helpful because who would have guessed from the pinched expression that this little fellow is a clown? The figure is impressed “6”--the low number suggests that the model was made early in the Ralph Wood era. The enameling here is so soft and pretty, just as you would expect to find in an eighteenth-century figure. 

Ralph Wood examples of this figure can occur impressed “5,” “6,” or “74”--errors in numbering occur routinely on Ralph Wood figures. To top it, Ralph Wood also titled the figure Sloth, as you see in the example below. 

WHY Ralph Wood would title this figure Sloth beats me. Sloth is hardly a title to make a figure fly off the shelf. Note that the Ralph Wood Sloth is quite different in its decoration from the Ralph Wood Clown, and my theory on Ralph Wood holds that figures such as Sloth were made later in the Ralph Wood era. However, it is still an eighteenth-century figure.

Ralph Wood and his son were both dead by 1802, so what happened to the Ralph Wood molds? I think they passed into hands of other potters. For example, this figure, circa 1815 and currently in Andrew Dando's Exhibition (on line this week), is of the same form.

Andrew's figure is described as a sweep, and the addition of a brush of sorts on the ground as well as the figure's sooty clothing have, over time, earned this figure its name. Perhaps the original title of Sloth inspired the derivative concept of a sweep clad in sooty clothing. 

Ralph Wood would, I think, have been flattered to know that his model continued in production for decades after his death, but truth be told this model was not a Ralph Wood original. Rather, Ralph Wood copied the design from a porcelain figure made to represent winter by the French factory at Lunéville, after a model by Paul Louis Cyfflé.  Nonetheless, Ralph Wood models run like a golden thread through the body of early pottery figures. Again and again, I come across figures that trace back to the Ralph Wood design.  Those ubiquitous Elijah and Widow pairs, for example, are after the Ralph Wood model.

The Elijah and Widow figures shown here are impressed 169 and 170 respectively. These are the highest two numbers on the list of Ralph Wood numbers, so these are the latest two numbered models Ralph Wood made.  Don't for a moment think these are the only Ralph Wood models to have been copied for decades. If we go to the other end of the number list, we find a gardener and mate, numbered 1 and 2, and these models spawned look-alikes for a good forty or fifty more years. You just can't kill a good design!  You will find the Ralph Wood gardeners and oodles more gardeners than I can show you here in Volume 1 of Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840.

When I first started collecting, I really didn't give a hoot whether a figure was marked or not. As long as I found it aesthetically pleasing, that's all that mattered. Fortunately, that was the best approach for me then because if I had only wanted marked figures, I would have struggled to assemble a collection. Fast forward 30 plus years, and I place extraordinary value on a maker's mark. It embodies with it a wealth of information, not to mention the potter's history.

The Wedgwood mark that we find on about two dozen figure models is far from common. Surprisingly, it is not the mark of the famous Wedgwood manufactory. Rather, it is the mark of Ralph Wedgwood, who was active as a  potter from 1788 to 1800. This mark enables us to date marked Wedgwood figures within a fairly narrow time frame.

I spent last week proofing Volume 4 of Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840, and, in so doing I noticed again that there are no less than THREE models of Venus with the Wedgwood mark. The first, the figure of Venus below, stands with Cupid. This is a fairly traditional/ordinary model, of the sort that several pot banks made. Ralph Wedgwood was a skilled plagiarist, so it comes as no surprise that he too copied this model. As on all his marked figures, the mark is impressed in small uppercase letters on the back of the base.

The second Venus with the Wedgwood mark is quite different. You see her below, with VENUS impressed on the front of the base and WEDGWOOD on the back. This model is far from common., but I think I have seen it in a Pratt palette.

The first two figures are of a similar sort, and it is not a stretch to think that they originated  from the same pot bank.  The third  marked figure, however is quite different in both concept and execution--and it is B-I-G. Below, we see a 29.4-inch figure of Venus holding a dove. The figure is not titled, but the dove is Venus's attribute, and other figure models also show her holding a dove. Look at that dress pattern. What a stunner! I don't collect figures of this scale, but how could I fail to be bowled over by this figure's beauty?

You can read all about Ralph Wedgwood in Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840, Vol. 1, but he really was a remarkable man who was way ahead of his time. He is credited with inventing carbon paper (does the younger generation even know what that is?)  To top it, by 1815, he had invented the telegraph! Shocking, there was no commercial interest in his invention then, and the British government decreed that Britain's victory at Waterloo that year (decisively ending a long period of war with France) made improved long-distance communication unnecessary. Seems that Wedgwood as both a scientist and a potter struggled to find commercial success, but his figures are extraordinary reminders of both the man and his times.

Once in a blue moon you find something extraordinary on eBay. And once in a blue moon a very rare figure comes to market. The two blue moons collided yesterday, when this exceptional figure sold on eBay.

Three bidders stuck out the bidding to the bitter end, with one narrowly prevailing at $2606. No sooner had the auction ended than I heard about it from several collectors. "I think the figure is awesome," emailed a newish collector. "Why the price?"  So today's blog is my attempt to satisfy everyone's curiosity.

The figure was described as a lady reading a book, but, in truth, there is a lot more to the story. The lady portrays the famous actress Maria Malibran.  
Maria Malibran (1808–1836), a renowned beauty and a mezzo-soprano of extraordinary vocal range and power, earned international accolades and adoration on the stage. In 1836, Miss Malibran suffered permanent head injuries when falling off a horse. Thereafter, she performed a handful of times before collapsing on the stage in Manchester in September 1836 and dying days later.

The design source for the figure of Miss Malibran is this engraving of the actress that appeared in the Dramatic Magazine.

So why the price? First, I think the price was very modest, a wholesale price if you will. I know that more than one member of the trade was in on the bidding, and the figure may have been bought by the trade.  The figure is a good size (7.5" tall and almost 7" across), as you see from the image below taken with a soda can.  And above all, it is simply exquisite...beyond beautiful and gorgeous. Had she been an unidentified lady reading a book, she might well have been worth $2606.

To top it, Miss Malibran is an exceptionally rare figure. I have never seen one in the flesh. Two other figures of Malibran are documented. One has vanished and nobody knows where it is. The other is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and I went to extraordinary lengths to procure its image for Vol. 2 of Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840, to be released in the next few weeks.

In working on Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840, I was required to put a price code on each figure. This was an impossible task! So many variables affect price. No figure is quite like another, and price at auction depends on many factors that bear scant relationship to the figure itself. But I knuckled under and provided prices. So what did I put on the Fitzwilliam Museum's figure of Miss Malibran? How do you price something that rare, something that has never traded in a public market? Well, I put a price of C ($3000 to $6000 or roughty £1900 to £3800).  I can see this figure sitting on a dealer's shelf in just that price range. And I can also see it with a much higher sticker. Either way, it would rapidly go to a new home. 

Yesterday's buyer got lucky, and I think he probably realizes it.  The seller must still be reeling. He/she clearly had no idea of what he/she had, and the auction started at $5.  Once in a blue moon, everything works out on eBay!

This weekend, I received an email from someone wanting to know if her sweet little shepherdess with a bocage was Staffordshire. Indeed it was. The figure was apparently in perfect condition. The new owner had fought off two other bidders at a local auction to buy the figure for the princely sum of $10.50. She was over the moon with her purchase--not because she got a bargain but rather because she LOVED the figure. A new collector is born. Yay!  She emailed that she was scouring eBay and I answered with my usual caution, so here it is again: 

• Be careful on eBay. Most of the so-called 'early' pottery offered is junk or has issues. 
  
• Even if it is a genuine early figure and looks OK, beware undisclosed restorations (frequently the seller genuinely can't detect these.) I routinely return my few eBay purchases because of undisclosed restoration, and the return process is a big nuisance.  
  
• If you really know what you are doing, you can find an exceptional item on eBay once in a blue moon, but you will not get it for nothing. You may get it for a good price--as in the case of Miss Malibran--but unless you are really well informed, you will probably overpay.