I have an odd couple in my collection. These two figures were sitting at opposite ends of my home...and then I looked again and thought why not??
As you see, both figures have the same bases, bocage leaves. and flowers. It is no coincidence that they look so compatible. Both were made by Samuel Hall, and have the "HALL" mark impressed on the reverse. As I have said before, Hall really liked blue and red bocage flowers with large centers.
Hall figures have their charm, but I have yet to see a drop-dead gorgeous example. They are definitely desirable, but nothing to leave you weak at the knees. Hall was a sloppy potter most of the time, and I am fascinated by the quirkiness of his work. Another bocage form that Hall used frequently comprises oak leaves and acorns, as on the figure below.
This figure is impressed BOY AND DOG and it also has the HALL mark impressed on the reverse. Other potters also used this same oak-leaves-with-acorns bocage form, but Hall always painted his acorns red. (In contrast, Enoch Wood preferred yellow-with-brown acorns!) The weird thing about this Hall bocage is that Hall clearly did not care too much about the front. As you see, the leaves are not very well modeled. The front is a blurry mess, but the back is another story.
When it came to the back, Hall went more than the extra mile. He deliberately tooled a very prominent central vein onto each leaf. I see this again and again on Hall bocages of this form. It is almost as if extra work went into tooling the leaf after it came out the mold. A little tidying up at the back, but forget about the front?
The details that you notice when you photograph figures boggle the mind. As I photographed these, I noted that both the birds nest boy and the boy with dog tilted backwards almost precariously. Another sloppy Hall detail that I may find repeated? We shall see.
Hall did not confine his skills to just these bocage forms. Below are two dandy ladies Hall made. The lady in the yellow dress is marked HALL. Her bocage leaves and flowers are quite generic. Anyone might have made them. The lady on the right is unmarked, but she has that oak-leaves-and-acorns bocage that is associated with Hall.
Hall did not confine his skills to just these bocage forms. Below are two dandy ladies Hall made. The lady in the yellow dress is marked HALL. Her bocage leaves and flowers are quite generic. Anyone might have made them. The lady on the right is unmarked, but she has that oak-leaves-and-acorns bocage that is associated with Hall.
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A caveat here: John Dale made a dandy lady from very similar molds--so be cautious in attributing an unmarked example.
Courtesy the Goodacre Collection
| Alongside is the dandy lady that Hall's competitor John Dale made. The bocage flowers (or what's left of them) are specific to Dale. Comparing the Dale lady to the Hall lady, shows tiny differences in the mold.
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Of course, both Hall and Dale made dandy gentlemen to accompany their ladies, and again there are small differences in the molds that tell them apart.
Remember that Hall figures can exhibit other distinctive features, including a star-shaped flower discussed in the Dec 12, 2012 blog posting. A concise summary of everything about Hall (and every other maker) will be in the first volume of my new book.
Remember that Hall figures can exhibit other distinctive features, including a star-shaped flower discussed in the Dec 12, 2012 blog posting. A concise summary of everything about Hall (and every other maker) will be in the first volume of my new book.
