This site is now over ten years old, and I am amazed that, given the hundreds of blog articles I have already published here, there is anything left to say! But early Staffordshire figures never cease to surprise, and something new is constantly turning up. Case in point is this tiny courting couple with a broad bocage, which sold at auction recently.
Courtesy Gildings
This brings to four the grand total of similar little couples that I have recorded, and two of the three others are shown below.
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Groups like this are generally referred to as "dandies," and I admit to including them among the dandies in my publications. But in my mind they are really courting couples. For one, true dandies groups always stand differently, with a swaggering stance, like the three couples on the left below.
Add to that, the little courting couples comprise the very same figures we find on New Marriage Act groups, as you see below.
Next, the figure of the water carrier, below. Rare as it is, it is recognizable to sharp-eyed collectors as one of our earlier figures,. Made by Ralph Wood circa 1785, it typically looks like the example I show here.
Courtesy Andrew Dando
This water carrier lady, here titled A Galego, also occurs decorated in colored glazes and bearing Ralph Wood's mark, and an example is recorded impressed "67" in the Ralph Wood manner. It is one of several figures that Wood made with a Spanish theme or title.
Ralph Wood modified some of his figures to accommodate the nascent enthusiasm for bocage, and, in this spirit, he removed her cloak, and fitted a bocage, as you see on the figure below. The jug atop her head seems to have been modified at the same time. I have never seen another figure like her.
Ralph Wood modified some of his figures to accommodate the nascent enthusiasm for bocage, and, in this spirit, he removed her cloak, and fitted a bocage, as you see on the figure below. The jug atop her head seems to have been modified at the same time. I have never seen another figure like her.
I believe that nearly every early Staffordshire figure has a companion, and Galego, is no exception. Ralph Wood designed a musician titled A Gasconion. The example below is impressed "66".
Courtesy Mary and Maurice Norton
Ralph Wood similarly spiffied up his Gasconian with a bocage, as you can just see in this old catalog image.
Courtesy Christie's
Ralph Wood died in 1795, and it seems some of his molds landed in the hands of Richard Dudson, who established a manufactory shortly after. The Galego and Gasconion molds were clearly among them, and Dudson produced less refined versions of these figures.
Courtesy Andrew Dando
While the Dudson figures aesthetically cannot hold a candle to the Wood ones, their bright colors and naive clunkiness have an appeal of their own. And those large cloaks, much bigger than the Wood garments, are stunning.
