Shakespeare: C.870-1984

Titles

Shakespeare

Maker(s)

Production: John & Rebecca Lloyd (Perhaps)

Entities

• Figure
• Victorian Staffordshire figure
• Flat-backed figure

Categories

• Lead-glazed earthenware

Description

White earthenware figure moulded in three parts with separately moulded left arm and leg, right hand, and scroll, and pearlware glazed. Painted in under-glaze blue and in black, green, orange, brown and flesh-pink enamels, and gilt.

Shakespeare stands, leaning his left elbow on a column and crossing his left leg over his right; he holds a scroll in his left hand. The figure is well coloured. He wears a long flesh-pink coat with orange lining; a blue under-jacket decorated in gold; breeches which are finely painted in shades of green; a white shirt with broad collar; pale blue stockings and black shoes. His clothing is edged in gilt and there are gilt laces on his shoes. He is balding, with short black hair and a trimmed beard and moustache. The pillar has brown and flesh-pink bands. Black marks indicate writing on the scroll. The rectangular base has rounded corners and a vertical concavity to the front, in the centre of which is a gilt motif comprising a dot enclosed by two vertical bracket lines, with eight small gilt lines to either side. There is additional gilt decoration of four dots and a line on each side of the base front. The underside is concave and glazed. The back is partly moulded and coloured, with a vent hole 5 cm from the bottom.

Notes

History note: From the collection of the late Colonel R.G. Turner. Given by Mrs J E Campbell, 1984.

Legal notes

Given by Mrs J.E.Cameron, from the collection of Col R.G.Turner, 1984

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given (1984) by Cameron, J.E., Mrs

Dating

19th Century, Mid
Victoria I
Circa 1840 CE - Circa 1850 CE

Note

This figure was probably made as a pair for a figure of John Milton, and made in several sizes The decoration is very similar to an 8 inch Milton figure, shown in Harding (1998), which has pink trousers painted in a similarly ‘feathered’ stripe pattern.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), England’s greatest poet and playwright, was a popular figure for Victorian Staffordshire figures; Pugh shows at least ten. He is often shown in similar pose to this, sometimes in a pair with Milton or Garibaldi. Victorian Staffordshire models of Shakespeare’s house were also made, and a series of Shakespearean characters, based on Tallis’s Shakespeare Gallery (1852-53), which have been attributed to Thomas Parr.

School or Style

Victorian