Standing woman: C.938-1928

Titles

Standing woman

Maker(s)

Unidentified factory (Production)
Possibly David Wilson

Description

Earthenware figure, press moulded, pearlware glazed and painted with polychrome enamels

Large earthenware figure of a standing woman. Her long dress is yellow and decorated with brown sprigs and a pink belt; the back is drawn up over her head, the front gathered beneath her naked breasts. Her left hand is raised to hold a pink wreath which frames her head and shoulders and is loosely tied around her hips. Her right holds the wreath and grasps the dress in front, revealing her bare toes. Her hair is painted in the same yellow as the dress and she wears a thin string of brown beads. She stands against a stylised tree stump and on an irregular flat green base with blue and white scrolls and a scallop shell to the front. The back is fully moulded and decorated. The underside is open and glazed into the interior.

Notes

History note: Bought from Mr Stewart Acton at Brighton on 29 June 1917, for £3.10 (three pounds ten shillings), by Dr J.W.L.Glaisher, Trinity College, Cambridge.

Legal notes

Dr. J.W.L. Glaisher Bequest, 1928

Place(s) associated

• Hanley ⪼ Staffordshire ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

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

Dating

First half of 19th Century
Circa 1810 - Circa 18401810

Note

Earthenware figure groups were popular from around 1810, although the earliest examples date from nearly a century earlier. A cheaper alternative to porcelain figures, they were often produced by small potteries; very few are marked. Classical or literary subjects were frequently copied from porcelain examples, but potters increasingly turned to scenes from everyday life and topical events. These early figure groups are often complex, including modelled and moulded parts and applied decoration; the backs, though flat, are decorated. As demand increased, processes were streamlined to allow mass production and by around 1835 the earlier, relatively costly, methods had largely given way to three-part press-moulding.

Rackham (1935) suggests this figure might possibly have been made around1810 by David Wilson, who was the partner of James Neale at Church Works, Hanbury. However, the simple two-part moulding and limited palette of bright colours perhaps indicates a later date.