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Grace Darling and her father
Production: Unidentified factory
White earthenware ornament moulded in three parts with additional modelled boat containing figures, and shards of clay used as decoration. Painted in underglaze blue, and in black, brown, green, pink, yellow and salmon pink enamels, and gilt.
The oval base is inscribed ‘Grace Darling’ in gilt script. Grace and her father face each other in a boat, on choppy water, with a lighthouse and cottage on rocky cliffs behind. The model is well coloured. The small figures have blue jackets, and her skirt is decorated in pink and green. The boat and the lighthouse are salmon pink; the latter has a red-brown door, three moulded windows, and a white lantern top decorated in gold and topped by a pink ball. The house has a red-brown door and a pink roof; there is gilt on its two windows and chimney. The scene is outlined in shards of clay, painted pink, brown and green to suggest vegetation. The underside is concave and glazed. The back is flat, with part missing.
History note: No information
Dr J.W.L. Glaisher Bequest
Depth: 9 cm
Depth: 3.5 in
Height: 16.5 cm
Height: 6.5 in
Width: 13.5 cm
Width: 5.25 in
Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1928) by Glaisher, J. W. L., Dr
19th Century, Mid#
Victorian
Production date:
circa
AD 1840
Grace Darling (1815-1842) and her father, keeper of the Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands, off the Northumberland coast, rescued four men and a woman from the wrecked steamer ‘Forfarshire’, in September 1838. They rowed for over a mile through raging seas to reach them; Grace then tended the sick whilst her father returned for more survivors. Both received gallantry medals from the Royal Humane Society and the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck (now the RNLI); Queen Victoria sent £50. Grace became a celebrity of her time, but died of tuberculosis at age 26.
Oliver (1981) notes that a poor modern reproduction of this model is frequently found.
Rackham (1935) lists this figure as of a type made chiefly by Sampson Smith at Longton, a factory listed in contemporary directories as a ‘manufacturer of figures in great variety’, which continued to make figures in quantity into the early part of the twentieth century. Sampson Smith figures typically have a flat back and plain oval base, often with a gilt script title, but the earliest known Sampson Smith figures date from around 1851. There were many other, often smaller, manufacturers of figures working in Staffordshire at this time.
Decoration composed of enamels ( black, brown, green, pink, yellow and salmon pink) underglaze cobalt-blue gold
Press-moulding
: White earthenware moulded in three parts with additional modelled boat containing figures, and shards of clay used as decoration. Painted in underglaze blue, and in black, brown, green, pink, yellow and salmon pink enamels, and gilt. The underside is concave and glazed. The back is flat, with part missing.
Painting
Lead-glazing
Gilding
Accession number: C.1002-1928
Primary reference Number: 71122
Old object number: R.3226
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Grace Darling and her father" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/71122 Accessed: 2024-04-25 22:02:58
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/71122
|title=Grace Darling and her father
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-04-25 22:02:58|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
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<div class="text-center">
<figure class="figure">
<img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa2/C_1002_1928_281_29.jpg"
alt="Grace Darling and her father"
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<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Grace Darling and her father</figcaption>
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Accession Number: P.23-1979
Accession Number: P.433-1991
Accession Number: PD.163-1950
Accession Number: PD.186-1950
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, 1868 Sir Ivor and Lady Batchelor Bequest through The Art Fund. Photo © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge..jpg?key=directus-large-contain)