28. Other Farm Workers

Hover your mouse over small images to read their captions. Click images to enlarge.

Enamel-painted Figures

28.1a. Attributed to Ralph Wood. The male is like that shown in 28.1 but the heavier script used for the titling here is thought to have been introduced later in the Ralph Wood period. The female figure is usually titled Hay Maker, as seen on other examples in Volume 1. Courtesy Bearnes, Hampton & Littlewood.

28.12a. Lacking features to support attribution. Courtesy Chiswick Auctions.

28.13a. After the Ralph Wood model and on a base banded with two lines. I have noticed that some of the RW Elements also had this treatment, presumably by another pot bank after RW's demise.

28.34a. Like 28.34 but not marked. Possibly made by John Walton. Courtesy Malcolm Trundley.

28.61. The figure of a man at the back, a harvester I think, is shown here from a Christie's 1993 catalog. It is described as flat on the back and marked WALTON.

28.62. This stunning pair was made at the Leeds Pottery. The female figure was used in more than one context. See Vol. 4, 199.21. Courtesy the Metropolitan Museum.

28.63. Attributed to "Sherratt".

Figures Decorated with Underglaze Colors or with Colored Glaze

Made by Ralph Wood. She is impressed R. WOOD beneath. See Vol. 1, fig 28.1 and following for enamel-painted versions. Courtesy John Howard.

From the same molds as the previous figure, and both may portray Seasons (Autumn and Summer respectively.) Also, note a stylistically similar figure in chapter 30 on this site of a vendor holding flowers, which may portray Spring. (c) Brighton and Hove Museums.

Courtesy Andrew Dando

A very unusual base. Perhaps portraying Autumn. (c) Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

This very unusual harvesters group has lost its bocage.

Cow Creamers

The figures in the next block are all cow creamers. There seem to be an infinite number of cow creamers, and that so very many survive today attests to the popularity and usefulness of these objects in their era. Some of these were made in Yorkshire, and others in Staffordshire.

Courtesy John Howard.

Same as the following model.

Same as previous model.

Courtesy John Howard.

Courtesy Bonhams.

Courtesy John Howard

Courtesy Martyn Edgell.

Courtesy John Howard.

This distinctive cow model was also made without a milkmaid (see 3:118 Cows). (c) Skinner Inc.

Probably made by one of the Scottish pot banks or perhaps by a northeast pot bank. Courtesy the William Herbert and Nancy Hunt Collection.

Yorkshire Figures

The figures in the next block are from the Yorkshire pot bank that Griselda Lewis dubbed "the pottery that used a large impressed crown mark." Some of the little figures are gardeners--the man leaning on a spade and the woman holding a basket of flowers--but, given the presence of a large cow they are here considered to be farm workers. Similar figures can be seen among the gardeners and shepherds in 1:24 and 1:27.

Courtesy John Howard.

Courtesy Tennants Auctioneers.

Courtesy eBay seller jwbygones.

Courtesy eBay seller b.siro.

This couple--a milkmaid and a farmer--also occur alongside the cows previously shown. Courtesy Leo Kaplan Ltd.

The milkmaid previously shown here stands alone. (c) Bonhams.

The same figures are on Pratt groups show in the Gardeners section, but this time they stand with large cows. Courtesy John Howard.

Made as a money box. Courtesy Hawley Auctions.

Feldspathic Ironstone Figures

As 28.26 to 28.28.

Attributed to Ralph Wood. Incised 31 on the back. Same model as 28.1. Courtesy John Howard.

Back of the previous figure showing the number incised. Usually RW numbers are impressed rather than incised, but the number corresponds to the RW mold number for this figure. The base from beneath is typical of RW, having rounded internal corners.

Circa 1760 decorated with colored oxides under the glaze

This exquisite group dates to the Whieldon period and is earlier than other figures on this site, which were made after circa 1780 when figure production ramped up. I show it because it reminds us that bocage was around before 1780.....and is it not GORGEOUS?. Courtesy the Metropolitan Museum, NY.