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).
(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.
