Early Staffordshire pearlware and creamware pottery figures

Holding the Past

8/31/2014

Thursday of last week was a big day in my life: I signed off on the proofs of Vol. 4 of my four-volume work, Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840 AND on the proof of Holding the Past: the William Herbert and Nancy Hunt Collection of Early English Pottery Figures.

While Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840 is the 'manual' and photographic record every collector must have, Holding the Past is the book everyone will want. This book pays the ultimate tribute to Staffordshire's extraordinary figure potters. Unlike my other books, it showcases Pratt, color-glazed, and enamel-painted figures--the whole gamut of figure production in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The photographs are large and glorious. The figures--some of which are unique-- are discussed in their historical context, and there is a wealth of relevant infomation for collectors. Below is the dust jacket and book description. Copies will be available in February. The price is $125, but a savvy collector tells me that Amazon currently has a pre-order price of $87. Off the top of my head, there are about 400 pages!

From the catalog description:
The 547 pottery figures from the Hunt Collection illustrated in this book were made in Britain prior to 1840. Fashioned in an era before photography, these figures afford engaging three-dimensional glimpses of the people and happenings of those times. They are also important artifacts that hold the story of the past within their clay bodies. Britain then was the premier global force, and this small island nation influenced events that shaped our modern world. Exploring the figures within their historical context deepens our understanding of the social and political trajectories that forged national identities, that molded current beliefs, and that continue to determine our path to the future.

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Wilson Elements

8/26/2014

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Neale/Wilson figures of the Seasons, although far from common, are well documented. Other pot banks also made sets of figures depicting the Seasons, as well as sets depicting the Elements. So what of Neale/Wilson Elements? Hitherto, none has been recorded. That's right, not a single Neale/Wilson figure of Air, Water, Earth or Fire was known to me until recently. And then, this rather battered lady turned up on eBay.

She symbolizes Air, and for that reason, holds a horn in her hand. Despite the ravages of time, she remains lovely. Her face is interesting, and her hat has a splendid plume. Lest you doubt my identification, look beneath. The title AIR is impressed, as is the Wilson mark, G with a crown.

I was delighted to 'win' this figure on eBay for a modest amount and couldn't wait to see her in the flesh. When she arrived, I was a little surprised by her size. She is larger than I had imagined. Here you see her between a marked Neale tambourine player and a Neale/Wilson figure of Ceres.

My new purchase, in some ways, saddens me. WHERE are her companion figures of Water, Earth, and Fire? I bet that Neale/Wilson made them, yet today none is known. Lost for all time? Probably. On a day when sun streams through the window at my kitchen sink in the early afternoon, I will give AIR a good wash and assess her condition. Maybe I will let her nose scuff have a restorer's gentle touch, but otherwise I shan't do anything with her except enjoy her in her slightly tattered glory. After 230 years, she is entitled to some age spots. It goes without saying that I live in hope that some day her companion figures appear.

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Hall Lion and a Hall Base

8/19/2014

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I want to pick up on my last post by again looking at the pair of deer attributed to Samuel Hall that John Howard sold. In talking to John, he noted that the deer were on the same base as a lion model he has had in stock in the past and that Andrew Dando currently has on his web site. You can see Andrew's lion and John's deer below.

John concluded that, based on the fact that the lion is on the same distinctive base as the Hall deer, it was also made by Hall. I believe he is right.

Hall made a limited range of figures, but he had an affinity for lions. I have recorded small lions that I attribute to Hall, as well as large ones. The lion below titled WALLACE has bocage flowers that confirm a Hall attribution. I believe this lion would have been made around 1828, when the lions Wallace and Nero were baited.

The distinctive bocage flowers on this lion are shaped like a star with six points. You can also see them below on a marked Hall Elijah, courtesy of a very kind collector.

And here those flowers are again on a small pair of felines that I attribute to Hall. I think of Hall as a sloppy potter. The finer points didn't seem to matter to Hall. Note how the little felines below have the ends of their paws painted blue to appear as if on a ball. Unlike other potters, Hall didn't bother making a lovely round ball and placing the paw upon it.

Subtle nuances often suggest a Hall attribution. Hall favored red and blue bocage flowers, as you see in the figures above, and, he sometimes gave the flowers large yellow centers. The glaze on Hall figures is hard and bright, and the overall standard of workmanship is...well, let's just say it could be better!

Hall is thought to have been potting from 1818 until the 1850s. He made early Staffordshire figures, but he also made figures into the Victorian period. Change in any industry is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and so clay bodies whitened slowly over the nineteenth century. To top it, our assessment of whiteness is a subjective judgement. John Howard noted that the deer figures he sold had quite white bodies, and, for that reason, he dates them at around 1840.

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Hall Deer

8/5/2014

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Somewhere in the bowels of this blog repose my musings on deer. I recall many moons ago writing that because deer are the most ubiquitous of early earthenware figures, we don't take them seriously enough. All deer are not equal. Every now and again, you find a superb example, and they should be rated as rare and desirable. As a collector, I know I reach deep into my wallet when something is particularly fine and rare---after all, shouldn't collecting be about quality rather than quantity? I would rather have a few great figures than lots of mediocre ones. And so it gladdened my heart to see this splendid pair of deer in fabulous condition bound on to John Howard's site last week.

I was gratified to see that John attributed these deer to the potter Samuel Hall, based on their bocages. Note the bocage has acorns on it. Other potters used acorns on their bocages, but Hall favored painting his red or blue. Also, the acorns are really mere blobs that are integral to the structure of the leaves---in other words, they were molded in one with the bocage leaves.

A curious feature strengthens the Hall attribution. As might be expected, the bocage leaves are oak leaves, assembled in a frond. Other potters also used triple-oak-leaf bocage fronds, but Hall's oak leaves tend to be rather poorly modeled. As if to make up for this, Hall paid particular attention to the back of each leaf, tooling it to emphasise the central vein. I see this quirky little feature again and again on figures that link to Hall.

To help bring this all together, I show a marked Hall figure with the same bocage.

The backs of all the bocage leaves on this HALL figure are also heavily tooled, as you would expect.
I bought this little figure from Andrew Dando a while ago--a nice addition to my reference collection:)

I concede, with surprise, that attribution is as much an art as a science. There is something about Hall figures that makes them recognizable to my brain, but I can't articulate it well enough to define it. Again and again, I have thought a very ordinary little bocage figure to be a Hall figure--and this suspicion has been confirmed by the mark impressed in the back.

The Hall deer did not stay on John's site for long. Despite a hefty price tag--and they were worth every penny of it because where else will you find a pair of deer so attractive and in such fine condition?--they bounded off the site and onto a collector's shelf within two or three days. Bravo! What a lovely purchase.

As a post script: There is not much currently for sale in the way of figures I haven't seen before, so this bull baiting spill vase caught my eye. It is more naive than most, and I think the coloring really pretty. Currently at Nestegg Antiques.