Maker: Job Ridgway & Sons
Art period: Regency
An almost identical example of this beautiful potpourri vase by Job Ridgway & Sons is in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London (click here for the catalogue entry). It would likely have graced a Regency mantelpiece.
The bone china body, of sky-blue ground, is a near hemisphere. The two handles area in the form of spread eagles. The middle has sprigged decoration of putti and bacchanals playing with a tethered lion and a goat, eating grapes and quaffing wine from a jug. The putti sporting with the lion have musical instruments, while others carrying scythes and harvested crops. Below, and around the shoulder, are conventional sprigged ornaments of clustered grapes, vine and laurel leaves, palmettes and beading.
Roman legions carried a spread-eagle standard into battle, and the Grande Armée of Napoleon Bonaparte revived the custom. The French imperial eagle was part the lexicon of ‘Empire style’ Neoclassical art that flourished in France during the First Empire (1804-14) and quickly captured the rest of fashionable Europe.
The vase is supported by a tall foot standing on a square plinth. The V&A vase, which we have examined at the museum, is impressed with ‘Ridgway & Sons’ on one side of the plinth. The V&A’s is very slightly larger than ours, judging by the museum’s published measurements.
The V&A potpourri is shown in Plate 277 on page 185 of Staffordshire Porcelain in Geoffrey Godden’s chapter on Ridgway, and Plate 6 in his book Ridgway Porcelains. Godden wrongly terms it a “dessert tureen” and a `”cream or sugar tureen,” evidence that even the most revered expert can sometimes err!
CONDITION Good. One of the eagles has been over-painted in white enamel, possibly to mask restoration. Otherwise, no sign or damage or wear.
Height: 15.3 cm Width: 13.6 cm
Net weight: 692 g
Origin: Cauldon Place, Shelton, Hanley, Staffordshire Potteries, England
Medium: Bone china (porcelain)
See Ridgway Pottery at Cauldon Place in Makers & Artists for background on the factory.
