I often think about the many antique Staffordshire pottery collectors who simply buy something that they like when they stumble upon it, and I envy their uncomplicated collecting journey. Our collection is a little different. I like to buy unusual and unrecorded figures that I didn’t even imagine existed. In addition, I keep a mental list of known figure models I want to own and wait for a good example to come up. This divine pearlware figure, a shepherdess with vase, has been on my Most Wanted List for ten years. It was made by James Neale & Co., circa 1785, and has the Neale mark impressed beneath.
A decade ago at a meeting, I watched a collector with a similar vase ask a dealer what it was. He was puzzled, but I knew what it was, even though they were standing across the room with it. This was not genius on my part; rather, the figure was easily identifiable because it is of the same form as one on the dust jacket of Diana Edward’s Neale Pottery and Porcelain.
A decade ago at a meeting, I watched a collector with a similar vase ask a dealer what it was. He was puzzled, but I knew what it was, even though they were standing across the room with it. This was not genius on my part; rather, the figure was easily identifiable because it is of the same form as one on the dust jacket of Diana Edward’s Neale Pottery and Porcelain.
To compound the collective ignorance on display that day, the dealer who had sold it was present, and he had not known what he had sold. And to make the story even more implausible, the figure was marked! Admittedly, the mark was not boldly impressed beneath; rather, it was impressed on the ground to the side of the shepherdess. The owner of the vase was delighted to learn she had a marked figure, and an especially early one at that. I thought it lovely, but I wouldn’t have wanted to own that particular example because it had been heavily overpainted and restored. So I added it to my Most Wanted List and waited.
Recently, my patience was rewarded with the beautiful example above. It has been well documented, having been illustrated in publications going back to 1929. In 1991, Jonathan Horne showed it at his annual London exhibition. At that stage, Jonathan had the damaged bocage leaves restored, and the difference in color to the leaves on the left and right, I have concluded, reflects the way the vase was made.
Recently, my patience was rewarded with the beautiful example above. It has been well documented, having been illustrated in publications going back to 1929. In 1991, Jonathan Horne showed it at his annual London exhibition. At that stage, Jonathan had the damaged bocage leaves restored, and the difference in color to the leaves on the left and right, I have concluded, reflects the way the vase was made.
| My vase is shown, before pre-restoration, within Edward’s Neale Pottery and Porcelain, so you can see that the restorer had enough original material to ensure he was using the correct color to restore the leaves. |  |
Both shades of green are evident on other parts of the vase, so the painter seemingly used both for the leaves too. Generally, Neale figures are painted with particular care. The enamels are the yummiest the Potteries ever produced, and they are almost silky to the touch. Yet despite this great care, there doesn't seem to have been much concern about matching. For instance, I have noted again and again that pairs of Neale figures do not match very closely on the mounds on their bases.
I have noticed the same type of mismatch, especially on bases, on figure pairs from other pot banks.
Pairs like these have led me to think that the figures were painted by different people---but my Neale vase compels me to rethink. Perhaps Staffordshire's potters weren't as matchy-matchy as we are today and they thought such small differences in shade inconsequential. Add to that, there was no artificial lighting, and on a gloomy day could you tell the difference between two close shades? Most of the difference in coloring you see in these pictures, taken in the harsh glare of huge specialty lightbulbs, is not particualrly obvious when the figures sit on a shelf. Even those leaves on the Neale vase don't catch they eye at first or even second glance.
