Early Staffordshire pearlware and creamware pottery figures

The Last Queen of America

11/23/2015

It was love at first sight when I first glimpsed the early pearlware bust pictured below. This dazzling lady captured in Staffordshire clay is none other than Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III. Prior to American independence, she was the Queen of America.

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Bust of Queen Charlotte

It has been some weeks since I first saw this bust, and, pathetic though it is, I am still star-struck. Charlotte sits on the wide window shelf at my kitchen sink, and I can't get enough of her. Her jewels and the detail on her dress are quite magical....unlike anything I have seen on a Staffordshire bust. I think the bust is circa 1800 because the soft green of the dress is an early color--after 1805 greens became harsher.

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Detail of the dress

Queen Charlotte (1744-1818) was an amazing woman who gave birth to 15 children, 13 of whom survived to adulthood. Interestingly, speculation runs rife that she was black, making her Britain's only black monarch. Some argue that Charlotte descended from African ancestors. Yet more historians doubt this theory, pointing out that the nine-generation distance between Charlotte and her supposedly black ancestor (a Portuguese noblewoman said to have descended from an African woman in the thirteenth century) is just too big a stretch.

Sir Allan Ramsay did most of the paintings of Queen Charlotte, and Ramsay's paintings suggest that the queen may have been of African descent. But perhaps Ramsay had an alternate agenda. He was one of the leading anti-slavery intellectuals of his time, and his grand-niece was black (Dido Elizabeth Lindsay, the black niece of Lord Mansfield). None of the contemporary caricatures of the queen suggest she was anything other than lily white, and caricaturists of that day would have had a field day if the queen's appearance suggested of African descent. Add to this, if Charlotte was indeed of black ancestry, why did not one of her too-many children exhibited even a trace of it?

Images of Queen Charlotte

Whatever Charlotte's ethnicity, the Staffordshire bust that adorns my window ledge is quite glorious, and that's how I shall always think of this queen. After all, she was the last queen of America....unless you think either Oprah Winfrey or Hillary Clinton has since earned that title!

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Pink Luster Pearlware Ladies

11/9/2015

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Early Staffordshire pottery figures were dazzlingly displayed last month on John Howard's stand at the International Fine Art and Antiques Show in New York. John does not merely wave the flag for early figures; rather, he elevates them to Fine Art, and appreciative buyers snapped up some choice examples. I was lucky enough to be at the show when it opened, and I have never seen a more breathtaking selection of early figures offered for sale.

One of John's very first sales at the show were the two remarkable pearlware ladies below. I have not previously seen their like, so I was really glad to be able to see them in person. The figures are large at around 14 inches, but they are not gigantic. In other words, the size was very pleasing to the eye, nothing clunky at all. And those colors!

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Photo courtesy John Howard

The backs are almost as glorious as the fronts are they not?

Photo courtesy John Howard.

The two ladies are identical figures rather than a pair. John bought them together and believes they have stood together all their lives. As no other example is known, I am sure he is right. He insisted on selling them as a pair, and fortunately the person who wanted them felt the same way. There is something about the way those two look at each other. Who could separate them?

Returning home, I am still haunted by these lovely ladies and wonder who they were meant to be. I can pin them on no obvious classical personage from the past. The closest I can come is the statue below, a "statue of a priestess or muse from a Hellenistic original" in the Capitoline Museum, Rome.

Photo (C) Capitoline Museum.

The statue once stood in Hadrian's villa. The museum's record notes that "the head is ancient but does not belong to the statue, which in reality showed a male Egyptian priest holding a canopic jar." Seems that even in ancient times restorers got it wrong!

Is it possible that a print showing this statue inspired John's two luster ladies?--after all, images of many classical works we no longer think too important were very much in vogue circa 1800. I am not certain. I am hoping my friend Bob Carde, the sleuth extraordinaire who has nailed the identity of other elusive figures for me, will read this and shed some light. But if you know, please tell! ([email protected], or comment below.)

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