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It is a strange thing indeed, but it seems that figures of dandy couples were made to pair with a similar group, the man and woman positioned and attired slightly differently. But today pairs are rarer than hen's teeth. Inevitably, by now nearly all pairs have been separated, or perhaps they were sold separately originally, which would explain why pairs are so very challenging to find. I don't…
This topic might be amusing were it not so disheartening.This pair of lions currently listed on LiveAuctioneers is described as a “rare set of Ralph Wood Staffordshire Medic Lions.” The catalogue entry praises Ralph Wood’s artistry and the vibrant colours, noting that one lion is in lavender-pink and the other in cobalt blue—“a rare palette for Ralph Wood pieces,…
In 2014, I stumbled across a remarkable, unrecorded figure on eBay. Beneath her base was the title AIR, leaving no doubt as to her identity. True to her elemental theme, she lifts a horn in one hand while her other hand clutches a skirt caught in an imagined breeze.Beneath the base, an impressed G and crown identified the maker as Robert Wilson of the Church Works pottery. James Neale, a London…
I have just completed updating all my eBooks, available as free downloads from the BOOKS tab on this site. Much as I dislike the task, it's thrilling when unrecorded figures surface! [...]
Last year I bid at a UK auction on what amounted to half a figure group--or, more correctly, I could see only half of what I intended buying. Just hours before the sale, I noticed, on the far left of a crowded lot photograph, a fragment of a group that demanded my attention. As often is the case, the auction house had included it in a lot of twelve miscellaneous ceramic items that I had no desire…
Recently, I launched FineStaffordshireFigures.com, a curated marketplace where collectors offer important Staffordshire figures directly from their collections. These are not dealers’ inventories. Each piece belongs to a private collector or an estate seeking to place cherished figures into new and appreciative hands.Although I am currently working with a select group of collectors, the…
This Staffordshire soldier with "80" painted on his crossbelt in an officer of the Eightieth Regiment of Foot. This regiment was raised in Staffordshire in 1793, at the onset of the Anglo-French wars. In 1802 it absorbed the Staffordshire Volunteers and changed its name to the Eightieth Regiment of Foot (Staffordshire Volunteers). I had long admired this plucky fellow in the Hunt Collection. He is…
Early Staffordshire figures of Billy Waters give us a realistic glimpse of a notable individual of the early 1800s. Waters was a black peg-legged former American slave who entertained passers-by on London's streets then. He was a well-known character, and he even had a brief role in a play titled Life in London.Whereas nearly all Staffordshire figures have companion models, Billy Waters figures…
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When collectors die, their figures need to find new stewards, and so it is with the unrivaled collection that the legendary Texans Herbert and Nancy Hunt built over fifty years. Sadly, both Herbert and Nancy have passed away, but their collection lives on in the pages of my book Holding the Past: the William Herbert and Nancy Hunt Collection of Early English Pottery Figures. Copies are available…