John Wesley: C.974-1928

Titles

John Wesley

Maker(s)

Production: Unidentified factory

Entities

• Figure
• Victorian Staffordshire figure
• Flat-backed figure

Categories

• Lead-glazed earthenware

Description

White earthenware figure moulded in two parts with separately moulded right arm, and covered with a blue-tinged lead-glaze and painted with black and reddish brown enamels.

Wesley stands with his left hand at his breast and his right raised in blessing. The figure is well coloured, but with the head and hands unpainted, save for the lips, eyes and eyebrows. He wears a floor-length black robe, with white bands at his neck and a wide brown sash belt. The deeply-waisted square base is painted in marbled brown. The underside is open. The back is moulded and decorated.

Notes

History note: Greville Douglas, Esq, 27 Wilton Crescent, London, S.W. Christie’s, 11 February 1919, lot 59, bought by Mr Stoner, on behalf of Dr J.W.L. Glaisher, FRS, Trinity College, Cambridge. Auction price 3½ guineas (£3 ten shillings and sixpence) for this and another figure, ‘Popery’; Dr Glaisher paid £4 (including commission).

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 1835 CE - Circa 1850 CE

Note

John Wesley (1703 - 1791 ) was a founding father of Methodism. Many of his converts were working class people, such as colliers, foundry-men, weavers, spinners and potters. Methodism was thus strong amongst those who made Victorian Staffordshire figures, for whom John Wesley would have been one of the most important people of the preceding century.

Rackham (1935) lists this figure as by an unidentified nineteenth century Staffordshire potter. Like most Staffordshire figures, it is unmarked, and there were many other, often smaller, manufacturers of figures working in Staffordshire at this time. Dr Glaisher also bequeathed a Rockingham porcelain figure of Wesley (C.3159-1928) preaching, c.1825-42, which, though holding a book in its left hand, is very similar to this figure and perhaps helps to date it. Underglaze black has been identified on the figures of several preachers made in the 1840s. There are also other Staffordshire religious figures modelled in a comparable pre-Victorian style which have been dated as late as 1851 (see, for example, C.995-1928).

The source of this figure may be a Minton design. The first Minton design book includes drawings of both Charles and John Wesley, in the same clerical dress as that worn by this figure. The drawing of John Wesley has similar hair and long face, and its hands are raised, though the pose is not quite the same as the figure (see Atterbury].

School or Style

Victorian