Pair Ralph Wood Staffordshire Pearlware Figures Chaucer & Newton

pre-Victorian, circa 1800. Tallest is 12ins high, 5.9ins wide, 3.9ins depth. Pair of Wood Family Staffordshire pearlware figures of Geoffrey Chaucer and Sir Isaac Newton, circa 1800. Each figure is modelled standing beside artifacts relating to his life and work, raised on a rectangular plinth with painted line border.

Chaucer is shown beside a pedestal piled with books, manuscripts and a quill,

and has an inscribed pattern number, '155' to the reverse of the base.

While Newton stands alongside a telescope, a celestial globe, books and scientific instruments.

Both figures are brightly enamelled in a characteristic palette and are decorated in the round, with detail continuing to the reverse.

Vent holes to the undersides.

Related Ralph Wood family figures are illustrated in Pat Halfpenny, English Earthenware Figures 1740–1840, p. 140, fig. 2.

Condition

CONDITION: Newton: Very good. No restoration. A few minor paint flakes and a shallow chip.

Chaucer: Very Good. No restoration. Shallow chip on the corner of the plinth.

KILN EFFECTS: firing crack to the face on the side of the pillar.

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