Description:
English pearlware, press-molded hind figurine decorated in green and dark brown. This figure, along with stag figurine (63.139) may have been molded by John Wood of Brownhills or Ralph and Enoch Wood of Burslem, Staffordshire. The stag has a dark brown body with white eyes with brown dots; the antlers have been replaced. The hind has a mottled brown and white body. Both recline on a domed, oval grassy mound, which is painted green.Many of the 18th-century European deer made in porcelain, creamware, or other ceramics, probably had Asian prototypes. Porcelain examples from Japan and China were highly prized on the Continent and some bear elaborate ormolu mounts added in Europe. A Japanese hard paste porcelain stag and doe pair is listed as "two staggs" in the Burghley House inventory of 1688. Although exact models are difficult to identify, documentary evidence proves that the Wood family in Staffordshire produced earthenware stag and hind figures in several decorative types. The 1783 to 1787 sales ledgers of potter John Wood of Brownhills in Burslem, list earthenware stags and hinds in pairs. The earliest entry is for retailer Joseph Tidmarsh's May 30, 1783, purchase of "6 Stags and Hinds" at 4s. 6d. The same total price is recorded on October 6 for "3 pair Stags and Hinds" of unspecified decorative type, bought by Thomas Dickins and, on December 9, 1785, for 3 pair sold to John Edwards. Samuel Ward's February 1786 payment of the same price (1s. 6d.) for a pair identified as "coloured" -- the category into which Deerfield's animals fit -- probably indicates that the previous examples were similarly decorated. More costly was a "Gilt" pair, sold to Stephen Mundy in June 1786 for 2s. 6d. Along with a colored pair at "1/6."Traditionally, John Wood's younger brother, Ralph (1748-95), was credited with producing a huge number of 18th-century earthenware figures, including stags and hinds. This blanket attribution is based in part on surviving figures marked "R. Wood" or "Ra. Wood/Burslem," however, none of these figures are stags or hinds. Written records associating Ralph Wood with such figures are among papers generated between 1783 to 1787, when he was sales manager in a partnership with his cousin Enoch. A November 16, 1783 invoice for wares sold by Ralph to "Messrs. Josiah and Thos Wedgwood" lists: [No.] 367 12 Stags white spotted 9d [per pair]/368 12 Hinds Do Do 9d/366 12 Hinds spotted Black 9d/365 12 Stags Do Do 9d. "White spotted" may refer to subtle dotting. "Spotted black" perhaps identifies some surviving earthenware deer on which large brown dots (about a half inch in diameter) with black centers boldly contrast with cream-colored bodies of deer. Ralph and Enoch Wood still were producing stags and hinds in 1787, the final year of their partnership. During Enoch's 1789 to 1818 partnership with James Caldwell, deer production continued. In 1810 alone, they provided one Wyllie, a London retailer, with at least seventy-six pairs of stags and hinds. Wyllie also purchased stags in pairs and stags without mates in 1810, and from 1813 to 1815. Physical evidence for Enoch Wood's production of deer subjects survives in the form of an 1825 to 1830 uncolored recumbent doe, excavated at the Burslem Old Town Hall site, among wares that exactly match marked Enoch Wood examples. Other 19-century earthenware deer makers, some of whom may have purchased molds from the Woods, are identifiable by marks impressed on the bottom of their figures.
Subjects:
Pottery; glaze (coating by location) Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+63.139A |
