Prattware Pottery Plaque of Two Spotted Lions, English, Early 19th Century

Details

Description

Prattware Pottery Plaque of Two Spotted Lions, English, Early 19th Century
Circa 1800–1840

This rare English Prattware plaque is press-molded … Read more Prattware Pottery Plaque of Two Spotted Lions, English, Early 19th Century
Circa 1800–1840

This rare English Prattware plaque is press-molded in high relief with two recumbent lions lying together on a grassy mound, a charmingly naive treatment of the king of beasts that is typical of Prattware at its best. One lion faces the viewer, its small white face framed by a thick, tousled mane, while the other, at the left, lies with its head lowered to the ground and its mane falling forward. The manes are painted in a rich orange-ochre streaked to suggest hair, the faces are left white with the brows and lashes picked out in ochre, and the bodies are white scattered with bold cobalt-blue spots among small dots of ochre, blue and green, a whimsical stylization that turns the imperial beast into a piece of domestic folk art.

The paws are painted in deep blue, and the tail, in manganese brown, curls forward along the front of the mound, which is washed in green and stippled in darker tones. The white ground is painted with sprays of flowering plants in orange-ochre, blue and green, two above the lions and a broader spray below, with small insects in flight. The whole is framed by a raised molded rim with a broad manganese-brown band between fine blue lines and an outer border of ochre dashes and dots.

The plaque is pierced at the top for suspension and retains an old wire hanger. The reverse is plain and glazed, showing the hollows of the molded figures.

The plaque hangs well on its own in a hall or above a chest of drawers, or grouped with other English pottery and creamware on a painted wall in a traditional or country interior.

Dimensions
Width: 10 1/2 inches (26.7 cm)
Height: 8 3/4 inches (22.2 cm)

Marks
Unmarked.

Provenance
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge.

Condition
Good antique condition.

References
John and Griselda Lewis, Prattware (Antique Collectors’ Club, 1984), p. 208, for a plaque of the same model in The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (Burnap Collection of English Pottery).

Historical Context
Prattware is a collectors’ name taken from jugs impressed PRATT, made by the Pratt family at Lane Delph, later Fenton, in Staffordshire, but the ware itself was made by many potteries in Staffordshire, Yorkshire, Tyneside, Liverpool and Scotland between about 1780 and 1840. Its defining feature is a palette of high-temperature metallic-oxide pigments, chiefly ochres, copper green, cobalt blue and manganese, painted directly onto the unglazed biscuit so that the colors were fired under the glaze. Relief plaques such as this were pressed from plaster molds and painted quickly by hand, and were among the most affordable wall ornaments of the day.

Ref: NY7396-nurr See less