I have always had a bit of a liking for Staffordshire pottery and particularly the portrait figures, so I am very happy to be starting work on a collection of four or five hundred of them. Rather difficult to gauge the number as they are still coming out of the cardboard boxes in which they were packed six or seven and in some cases ten years ago. I’m feeling quite nostalgic seeing all the old dealer labels and auctioneers lot numbers, including some of our own on pieces we sold to Mr Stockman twenty years earlier!
Staffordshire pottery has often been referred to as 'The Tribal Art' of England and I think it is an appropriate term not only because it is sometimes naively modelled and often boldly coloured, but because it focuses on ‘Joe Public’. Unlike the contemporary porcelain of the time which seems to have a predisposition for classical, mythological, Oriental and the exotic, Staffordshire pottery reflects the ‘Pop Culture’ of the period. Of course royalty and statesmen were the stock in trade of many Staffordshire potters but their work also depicted the actors, circus performers, soldiers and sailors, infamous criminals, the freak show, the unhinged, irreverent and sometimes the downright lewd.
Some of the Staffordshire Pottery from the Stockman Collection
I am currently cataloguing for our sale on Tuesday, 11th September 2012
in Honiton, Devon and live onine over the Internet.
I often wonder who was responsible for the belief that all Victorians were staid, resolute and upright with a hint of jingoism and ‘derring do’ You might not admit it openly, but you must be just a teensy bit curious as to who these ‘other’ individuals are…. however you’ll have to wait.
The sale is scheduled for Tuesday, 11th September 2012 in the Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood salerooms in Honiton, Devon. If you are impatient then I hope to be blogging daily as I work through the collection so you might get a sneak preview.
