Derby Porcelain figure of Britannia

An image of Figure. Britannia. Derby Porcelain Factory, Derbyshire. William Duesbury & Co., proprietor. The base is approximately circular with a rococo scrolled and pierced front edge, and rises up at the back into a broad tree trunk with two branches bearing flowers and foliage on the figure’s left. Britannia stands with her left foot slightly advanced, her head turned a little to her right as she looks towards her raised right hand. Her left arm is a little behind her, the hand supporting an oval shield charged with red crosses of St George and St Andrew, which rests on the head of a lion. She has long, pale brown hair, tied back, and a cap with three white feathers at the front and a red underside to the peak. She wears a white dress with a puce floral pattern, pink cuffs, and pink drape round the neckline, a gilt scale cuirass, a white and turquoise shawl draped over her right shoulder and arm, and black sandals with a gold button on top. On the figure’s right a pink flag with a Union Jack in the top corner projects from the tree trunk. On the base there is a pale blue canon mouth, two pale blue canon balls of different sizes, a sword with a black scabbard with green wreath resting on it, and a white trumpet. The edge is picked out in turquoise and gold. Soft-paste porcelain, slip-cast, and painted overglaze in pale blue, turquoise, green, flesh pink, pink, puce, red, pale brown, and black enamels, and gilt. The unglazed underside has been ground flat, and has three patch marks, and a large circular central ventilation hole. Height, whole, 26 cm, width, whole, 12.8 cm, circa 1765. Rococo.

Terms of use

These images are provided for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons License (BY-NC-ND). To license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who will discuss fees, terms and waivers.

Download this image

Creative commons explained - what it means, how you can use our's and other people's content.

Figure. Britannia. Derby Porcelain Factory, Derbyshire. William Duesbury & Co., proprietor. The base is approximately circular with a rococo scrolled and pierced front edge, and rises up at the back into a broad tree trunk with two branches bearing flowers and foliage on the figure’s left. Britannia stands with her left foot slightly advanced, her head turned a little to her right as she looks towards her raised right hand. Her left arm is a little behind her, the hand supporting an oval shield charged with red crosses of St George and St Andrew, which rests on the head of a lion. She has long, pale brown hair, tied back, and a cap with three white feathers at the front and a red underside to the peak. She wears a white dress with a puce floral pattern, pink cuffs, and pink drape round the neckline, a gilt scale cuirass, a white and turquoise shawl draped over her right shoulder and arm, and black sandals with a gold button on top. On the figure’s right a pink flag with a Union Jack in the top corner projects from the tree trunk. On the base there is a pale blue canon mouth, two pale blue canon balls of different sizes, a sword with a black scabbard with green wreath resting on it, and a white trumpet. The edge is picked out in turquoise and gold. Soft-paste porcelain, slip-cast, and painted overglaze in pale blue, turquoise, green, flesh pink, pink, puce, red, pale brown, and black enamels, and gilt. The unglazed underside has been ground flat, and has three patch marks, and a large circular central ventilation hole. Height, whole, 26 cm, width, whole, 12.8 cm, circa 1765. Rococo.

Image data

Accession Number: EC.18-1938
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Aperture: f/22.0
Focal length: 80
Camera: Hasselblad H3DII-31
Photographer name: Amy Jugg
Image height: 1024 pixels
Image width: 695 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.0 (Windows)
Filesize: 417.58kB
Exposure time: 1/60
ISO Speed: 100
Fnumber: 22/1
Captured: 2010:11:07 04:47:10

Key words

18th Century animal animals armour breastplate Britain ceramics clothes cuirass Derby Porcelain Factory Derbyshire Porcelain Factory dress Early Rococo enamel enamelled English feathered feathers female figure Fitz_AA flags floral flowers Georgian gilded gilding gilt glazed Great Britain lead-glazed lions on-glazed onglaze overglaze personification polychrome porcelain Rococo scrolled scrolls shawl shield slip cast slipware soft-paste porcelain studio ceramics Union Jack United Kingdom woman

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:


            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024)
            "Derby Porcelain figure of Britannia"
            Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-214257 Accessed: 2024-11-02 20:11:22

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:


            {{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-214257
            |title=Derby Porcelain figure of Britannia
            |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-11-02 20:11:22|publisher=The
            University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/images/media-214256

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa40/EC_18_1938_1_201011_amt49_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Britannia"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Derby Porcelain figure of Britannia</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>