Whieldon Group.
ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON.
Knight in green and cream; horse and base tortoiseshell.
EARLY STAFFORDSHIRE FIGURES.
Old Women Hucksters.
(In the collection of Mr. James Davies, Chester.)
We illustrate two animals, one of the tortoiseshell variety, a beast of formidable appearance and having considerable power in the modelling and strongly suggestive of the jaguar, but it must be remembered that beasts as depicted in contemporary books have an inclination towards heraldic monsters such as "never were on land or sea." The splashed cream ware elephant, only 3¾ inches in height, is fairly well modelled. But these, in common with the many diminutive figures of a like nature, belong to a period when Staffordshire was endeavouring to found an English school of potters, blindly groping along in almost untutored fashion—lame in design and feeble in inventiveness. From out of this chaos it seems impossible that there should arise soul enough to set the fashion later—nearly fifty years later—to the continent of Europe, and make English earthenware the formidable rival in point of cheapness, and often in point of beauty, to anything produced on the Continent. But the earthenware of Staffordshire was able to teach new points in technique concerning body and glaze to the continental potter.
In the illustration showing the group of St. George and the Dragon it will be seen that the modelling begins to assume a more pretentious character. The prevailing colours of the knight are green and cream, the horse and the base of the group are of the familiar tortoiseshell colouring. Beside this St. George are two early Staffordshire figures representing two old women as hucksters. Here the feeling is instinctively English, as national as are the Dutch beggars of the seventeenth-century Dutch etchers. Pity it is that this class of figure, recording national and local types, did not develop on uninterrupted lines. It is true, and of these we shall speak later, that the family of Wood in their types carried on the tradition, but the unfortunate classic influence monopolised the talents of the best modellers.
We illustrate two fine examples of Toby Jugs belonging to the Whieldon period. There is a strong family likeness between the two. The left-hand one is richly glazed and mottled in tortoiseshell markings. The other has the fine translucent colouring and glazing so noticeably prominent in this school. They are both remarkably good specimens of the Whieldon manner, and of unusual interest, as they represent the Toby jug in its earliest form.
The rivalry with Salt-glaze.—This "Whieldon ware" (of course it must not be forgotten that Whieldon made salt-glaze too) was contemporaneous with undecorated salt-glaze ware, which at its best exhibited in no small degree a complete knowledge of the strength and beauty of form unaided by colour. But in this school of Whieldon there is a distinct appeal to colour as a leading feature of the ware as opposed to form. There is a fine artistic blending of the colours and the variation of the glazes which palpitate with life and give extraordinary power to pieces possessed of the "Whieldon" touch. Not only on flat surfaces such as the well-known octagonal plates, but in figures and groups such as we have illustrated, these colour effects were employed with considerable dexterity. So that, in the contemplation of black-and-white illustrations of "Whieldon ware," everything is lost which gave the beauty and richness and mellowness which have an irresistible charm to those collectors who confine themselves to this early school of colourists.
