Louis Antoine Jullien: C.1010-1928

Titles

Louis Antoine Jullien

Maker(s)

Production: Alpha factory (Perhaps)

Entities

• Figure
• Victorian Staffordshire figure
• Flat-backed figure

Categories

• Lead-glazed earthenware

Description

White earthenware moulded in three parts with separately moulded arms and pearlware glazed. Painted underglaze in cobalt blue and with black, red, green and flesh-pink enamels, and gilt.

The oval base is shaped to the front to provide a flat panel; this bears the title ‘JULLIEN’ in gilt capitals, and gilt decorations to either side. Jullien stands with his left arm resting on a forward facing music stand. His left hand is raised, as if conducting and his gaze is lifted upward to his right. The figure is well coloured. Jullien is dressed in: a blue tail coat, edged with gilt; flesh-pink trousers; a gilt-edged white waistcoat; a shirt with gold buttons; and a green collar. He wears a full beard and a moustache. The music is detailed in black, and the stand has a broad red band. The underside is concave and glazed with a vent hole towards the back left. The back is moulded.

Notes

History note: Mr S Fenton, Cranbourn Street, London. Bought by 11 June 1909, for 7/6 (seven shillings and sixpence), by Dr Glaisher, Trinity College, Cambridge.

Legal notes

Dr J.W.L.Glaisher Bequest

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1928) by Glaisher, J. W. L., Dr

Dating

19th Century, Mid#
Victoria I
Circa 1850 CE - Circa 1855 CE

Note

According to Pugh (p.507), this figure is the companion to a figure of Jenny Lind as Marie in La Figlia del Reggimento (but not the one held by the Fitzwilliam).

Following Pugh (1970) and Balston (1958), it seems more likely that this figure was made by the ‘Alpha Factory’, an as yet unidentified producer whose figures share a number of common features. Here these include: well moulded in the round; separately moulded arms; painted in underglaze blue; and the title in gilt capitals bracketed by gilt decorations.

Louis Antoine Jullien (1812 - 1860) was a French conductor and composer of light music. He introduced promenade concerts to London and was particularly associated with dance music such as the polka, which became popular throughout Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. On purchasing this figure in 1909, Dr Glaisher wrote: ‘Jullien, as a conductor of large orchestras, as a composer of quadrilles, and as the introducer into England of shilling concerts, was an exceedingly well known personality from 1840 to 1860. [...] his name it was chiefly connected with noise ‘As noisy as a Jullien’s concert’ and [...] in addition to his own large orchestras at the theatre he would have six military bands’.

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 began around 1851 and continued to make figures in quantity into the early part of the twentieth century. But Sampson Smith figures generally have a flatter back and a plain oval base, and there were many other manufacturers of figures working in Staffordshire at this time.

School or Style

Victorian