Doing Dallas

Dallas is a remarkable city in that it houses more early Staffordshire figures than does any other city on earth. No, these treasures are not stuffed into museum cupboards. Rather, they are loved and enjoyed in the homes of collectors who generously share them with like-minded others. And so it happens that in the past few weeks, several interesting early Staffordshire figures crossed my path within a few miles of my home.

First, I was thrilled to see that the two pipers below jumped from John Howard's stock onto a local collector's shelf because this gave me an opportunity to examine and compare them to some other figures in my own collection.

These two close-to-identical pipers are not what you could call a pair, but they have probably lived side by side for almost two centuries. At my first glimpse of them, a "Sherratt" siren went off full blast in my head. Look at the number of features they share with other "Sherratt" figures----features that are exclusively "Sherratt."

First, the same piper occurs within other "Sherratt" groups, some of which are shown below.

The base is of a form that we see on other small "Sherratt" figures. It is from the same molds as the bases on the groups below.

And if you look at the "Sherratt" groups that follow, you will see that both the little perky dog and the bottle occur repeatedly within them. Yes, I know small dogs are not uncommon on pottery groups, but the "Sherratt" dog is unlike any other, and, off the top of my head, the bottle is also specific to "Sherratt."

The bocage flowers are the typical four-petalled mayflowers found on other Sherratt groups, including the two large family and courtship groups shown above.
The bocage (right) is a little atypical in its structure. I might have expected it to look more like the example on the left.

Those funny little round flowers on the base had me stumped for a while. A first for "Sherratt" perhaps? 

Not so at all. I had almost forgotten that I had recorded those same round flowers
on the base of this musical group.

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Below, you see one of the pipers alongside two other "Sherratt" groups with like characteristics. It is no wonder that Malcolm Hodkinson dubbed his book on this pot bank "Sherratt? A Natural Family of Staffordshire Figures."

It is satisfying when all the puzzle pieces come together, but I am left wondering why two male pipers would be "paired" in this manner. Given the choice, wouldn't you have paired the male piper with his female companion? I have encountered another instance of this. The two male pipers below probably lived together for centuries. 

The owner of this "pair" sold one--to me, I will confess--but the owner of the two "Sherratt" pipers prefers to keep that twosome together, which I quite understand.

Another interesting find in a Dallas home this month was this sheep. The base is one most commonly found on Dudson figures, but the distinctive bocage flowers (just like those on the two pipers immediately above) place this sheep in the Big Blossom Group. 

I must admit to being surprised at this combination of bocage and base, so much so that I checked carefully to confirm that the bocage is original to the group.  Lovely beast is it not?

A beast of another sort, and certainly not to every collector's taste, is the large figure of Atlas holding a globe, such as the example below.

Courtesy Leonard Joel.

Atlas's globe is usually open at the top (as is the one shown here) or it has a series of large holes near the top. The purpose of these openings has been a bit of a mystery. Last month in Dallas, I encountered a pair of Atlas figures gracing a dining table. Each globe held a metal candlestick fitting, as you see below. 

For now, I am left to assume that globes with multiple holes accommodated more complex fittings. 

This past month, getting out and about in Dallas was remarkably rewarding. I wonder what will turn up next?