SALE "Toby With a Wooden Leg" Staffordshire TEAPOT c.1840

Antiques : Staffordshire : Tea Pot

 

As Edward Bramah says in "Novelty Teapots: 500 Years of Art & Design", p48 (Fig.80): "Toby with a wooden leg . An uncomfortable but famous design in which the figure is contorted so that his good leg provides the handle & his wooden leg the spout. Staffordshire earthenware. c.1840. Ht.7-1/4" Bramah Collection".

CONDITION: The LID has some issues: Broken in half at the steam-hole width-wise, with a large surface flake & 2 old surface inner triangular surface chips on the outer and inner 1/2' deep ledge which inserts down into the teapot. One 'A' shape chip on the green part of the hat, pattern side. The knop escaped any damage!

The POT itself has a good spout and handle....no damage, no repair. 2 firing cracks, quite small, in the crevice where mid-arm meets peg-leg. Another small line where the good leg meets the body and on the same leg, where the pants end and leg begins..under glaze. Rubbing wear to the gilt on collar and bow, the hat's rim and probably the belt buckle. Surface flake and a chip on the ledge on which the lid sits (not seen on display). Quite a heavy piece, with NO crazing and NO repairs on the pot itself.

I actually noticed a near-twin of this tea pot on a shelf in the rich suburb house of the potential in-laws of Auntie Mame! (the snob-family her nephew was thinking of marrying into). The Kent family potters continued to pot this form from the late 19th into the 20th century.

REFERENCES: "Victorian Staffordshire Figures 1835-1875: Book TWO", A & N Harding, Fig 3367, p306 (their fig. 6", smaller than this one, is considered to be later than 1865), it has a less detailed waistcoat and facial features. Additionally: Harding, Victorian Staffordshire Figures 1875-1962, shows the later version, TOBY TEAPOT No 366, done by the Kent Factory, p21. Later versions of figures usually run smaller than the original earlier figures.

Item ID: Staf.Fig.16