When our family came to America in 1978, we bought with our oh-so limited dollars a VERY used VW Beetle. Then the design was already 40 years old, but, remarkably, that same design just keeps on trucking! Today, we still see VW Beetles on the road, and the car has become an automotive legend. The best keeps on getting better, or at the very least it survives, and so it is in the world of figure design too.
This little figure at auction this week piqued my interest. Made around 1825, he is about 40 years later than some others of his ilk--and I have hitherto not seen him on a pink luster base. The earliest pottery examples of this figure model are those made by Ralph Wood circa 1785, and the figure below, titled Clown, is a good example.
Courtesy Aurea Carter
Clown is of the same form as the first example on a pink luster base. The title is helpful because who would have guessed from the pinched expression that this little fellow is a clown? The figure is impressed “6”--the low number suggests that the model was made early in the Ralph Wood era. The enameling here is so soft and pretty, just as you would expect to find in an eighteenth-century figure.
Ralph Wood examples of this figure can occur impressed “5,” “6,” or “74”--errors in numbering occur routinely on Ralph Wood figures. To top it, Ralph Wood also titled the figure Sloth, as you see in the example below.
Ralph Wood examples of this figure can occur impressed “5,” “6,” or “74”--errors in numbering occur routinely on Ralph Wood figures. To top it, Ralph Wood also titled the figure Sloth, as you see in the example below.
Courtesy Elinor Penna
WHY Ralph Wood would title this figure Sloth beats me. Sloth is hardly a title to make a figure fly off the shelf. Note that the Ralph Wood Sloth is quite different in its decoration from the Ralph Wood Clown, and my theory on Ralph Wood holds that figures such as Sloth were made later in the Ralph Wood era. However, it is still an eighteenth-century figure.
Ralph Wood and his son were both dead by 1802, so what happened to the Ralph Wood molds? I think they passed into hands of other potters. For example, this figure, circa 1815 and currently in Andrew Dando's Exhibition (on line this week), is of the same form.
Ralph Wood and his son were both dead by 1802, so what happened to the Ralph Wood molds? I think they passed into hands of other potters. For example, this figure, circa 1815 and currently in Andrew Dando's Exhibition (on line this week), is of the same form.
Andrew Dando Antiques
Andrew's figure is described as a sweep, and the addition of a brush of sorts on the ground as well as the figure's sooty clothing have, over time, earned this figure its name. Perhaps the original title of Sloth inspired the derivative concept of a sweep clad in sooty clothing.
Ralph Wood would, I think, have been flattered to know that his model continued in production for decades after his death, but truth be told this model was not a Ralph Wood original. Rather, Ralph Wood copied the design from a porcelain figure made to represent winter by the French factory at Lunéville, after a model by Paul Louis Cyfflé. Nonetheless, Ralph Wood models run like a golden thread through the body of early pottery figures. Again and again, I come across figures that trace back to the Ralph Wood design. Those ubiquitous Elijah and Widow pairs, for example, are after the Ralph Wood model.
Ralph Wood would, I think, have been flattered to know that his model continued in production for decades after his death, but truth be told this model was not a Ralph Wood original. Rather, Ralph Wood copied the design from a porcelain figure made to represent winter by the French factory at Lunéville, after a model by Paul Louis Cyfflé. Nonetheless, Ralph Wood models run like a golden thread through the body of early pottery figures. Again and again, I come across figures that trace back to the Ralph Wood design. Those ubiquitous Elijah and Widow pairs, for example, are after the Ralph Wood model.
Elijah (impressed 169) and Widow (impressed 170), attributed to Ralph Wood, circa 1790
Elijah and Widow, after the Ralph Wood model, circa 1830.
The Elijah and Widow figures shown here are impressed 169 and 170 respectively. These are the highest two numbers on the list of Ralph Wood numbers, so these are the latest two numbered models Ralph Wood made. Don't for a moment think these are the only Ralph Wood models to have been copied for decades. If we go to the other end of the number list, we find a gardener and mate, numbered 1 and 2, and these models spawned look-alikes for a good forty or fifty more years. You just can't kill a good design! You will find the Ralph Wood gardeners and oodles more gardeners than I can show you here in Volume 1 of Staffordshire Figures 1780-1840.
