Pottery peoples
Jan. 2nd, 2014 01:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xenithStaffordshire figures are fairly commonplace in house museum and the like, especially the pair of spaniels. Possibly it was a law that every house had to have a pair.
Beyond the dogs though, what's interesting are the people figures, because they depicted well-known people of the time: celebrities, players in current affairs, fictional characters, anyone who might attract an audience willing to pay for an ornament to put on their mantelpiece. You get the usual suspects, kings and queens and such. The first time I actually came across them, other than the spaniels, was a collection brought into the QVMAG with multiple Napoleons.
The National Museum has on display a pair of William Smith O'Briens. One wearing fancy clothes and chains, the other in prisoner clothes.
Being intended for mass consumption, the figures were often made quickly and cheaply, especially later in the century when the back were often left unpainted. And there were other ways to easily create a "new" figure.
On the right, Dick Turpin. Change the name painted on the bottom, and we have an Australian "knight of the road" in Frank Gardiner.
Beyond the dogs though, what's interesting are the people figures, because they depicted well-known people of the time: celebrities, players in current affairs, fictional characters, anyone who might attract an audience willing to pay for an ornament to put on their mantelpiece. You get the usual suspects, kings and queens and such. The first time I actually came across them, other than the spaniels, was a collection brought into the QVMAG with multiple Napoleons.
The National Museum has on display a pair of William Smith O'Briens. One wearing fancy clothes and chains, the other in prisoner clothes.
Being intended for mass consumption, the figures were often made quickly and cheaply, especially later in the century when the back were often left unpainted. And there were other ways to easily create a "new" figure.
On the right, Dick Turpin. Change the name painted on the bottom, and we have an Australian "knight of the road" in Frank Gardiner.
