About a year ago, I bought a lot that included several  Staffordshire figures at auction. Of course, I only wanted one of the figures, but I had to buy the whole lot, which included a pearlware Widow. When the box arrived, I left the widow packed. I was far from excited with this mandatory purchase. Frankly, I considered it a nuisance for, as some of you know, I have been in the process of moving for the past year. At last, this week I reluctantly unpacked the unwanted Widow. A Staffordshire figure of a widow, was, I told myself, the last thing I wanted or needed, and  I would have to dump it on eBay.

My Widow now sits in the line of sight  my desk, and I enjoy watching the light play so gently on her lovely glazed body. She reminds me of the beauty to be found in the simplest of objects--a lesson we can all take to heart now that we are once again in the holiday season of excess.  The thought of putting her on eBay to be sold for a nominal amount disgusts me, so she will live with me, and perhaps I will find an Elijah to pair with her at some point. He'll have to be really lovely though, otherwise she will continue to live alone.

Collecting is a fascinating journey. I learn about figures and about myself all the time. Till now, I have thought that my collecting focus is the rarest and most 'special' figures....yet last month I was offered an impressive and unrecorded figure group that I could not bring myself to buy. The modeling, colors, and glazes just didn't come together in a way that pleased my eye. But my Widow, at the other end of the price spectrum, is another story. This figure has taught me not to tar all seemingly similar objects with the same brush. Not all Widows are nasty clunkers. So, if you keep your eyes open, you can find beautiful undervalued figures that will give you a lifetime of pleasure.

I am intrigued by this small pearlware figure in Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840, volume 4, ch. 145, shown below. It shows a boy playing with an iron hoop, a pastime that an older friend recalls seeing on the streets of England before World War 2.  

The figure is in a blue palette, and it can be attributed to the so-called Blue Group pot bank. Although this pot bank favored a blue palette, the palette alone does not support an attribution. However, the front and back of the bocage (alongside) does.  
(See Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840, volume 1, for a blow-by-blow explanation).

The longer I live, the more aware I am that most figures once had  companions, and so I have been waiting to find the boy's little friend. At last, it popped up on Aurea Carter's site last week, and it quickly found a new home. This time, the companion figure (below) is painted in a more typical polychrome palette, rather than the blue-and-white that the Blue Group sometimes used. At just 5 inches high, it, like the figure of the boy, is a lone survivor.

Also currently Aurea's site is the BIRDS NEST figure below. You guessed right: it too is attributed to the Blue Group. I haven't recorded a Blue Group birds nester hitherto, so perhaps this too is a lone survivor of this model from this manufactory. You will notice that this time, the bocage leaves are very different in structure, and their reverse is unpainted.

Unpainted leaf backs are not that uncommon on Blue Group figures. Although this pot bank used this short cut more than did others, it was not alone in employing this uncommon technique. Although I don't like Blue Group figures decorated in a predominantly blue palette, I find the green color palette particularly pleasing on some of their other figures. Here is a pair of musicians in much the same colors as the the two little girl figures above. Again, the bocage leaves are unpainted on the reverse.