Prattware Pearlware Plaque of Two Spotted Lions, English, Circa 1800

Details

Description

Prattware Pearlware Plaque of Two Spotted Lions, English, Circa 1800
Circa 1800–1820

Two lions lie side by side on a … Read more Prattware Pearlware Plaque of Two Spotted Lions, English, Circa 1800
Circa 1800–1820

Two lions lie side by side on a grassy mound in this rare English Prattware plaque, and they are unlike any lions you will find in a natural history book. Their manes are a rich orange-ochre, their muzzles white, and their bodies covered in bold cobalt-blue spots with a scatter of smaller blue, ochre and green dots. The effect is pure early 19th-century folk art, cheerful, a little eccentric and instantly memorable.

The plaque is press-molded in high relief and hand-painted in the high-fired underglaze colors that give Prattware its warm, slightly softened palette. Sprays of flowering plants in ochre, blue and green fill the white ground around the lions, a tiny insect hovers at the left, and the oval rim is finished with a brown band between blue lines and a border of ochre dashes. It is pierced at the top and still carries its old wire for hanging.

Plaques like this were made in Staffordshire and the North of England around 1800 as affordable wall decoration and were pressed from plaster molds, so each was finished differently by the painter. Most surviving lion plaques of this model are painted in browns; a blue-spotted version is a genuine rarity. A comparable plaque is in the Burnap Collection at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, and is illustrated in John and Griselda Lewis, Prattware, page 208.

Hang it on its own in a hallway or above a chest of drawers, group it with other English pottery plaques and creamware on a painted wall, or let it bring a note of humor to a library, a child’s room or a country kitchen. It sits as happily in a period interior as it does against a modern white wall.

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

Condition
Good antique condition. See less