Staffordshire figure of a girl kneeling in prayer

An image of Flat-backed figure. Girl kneeling in prayer. Mary Magdalene. Unidentified factory, Staffordshire. The rectangular base is encircled by a thick gilt line. The girl kneels on her right knee, on a cushion; she gazes upwards with pious expression and her hands are raised in prayer, The figure is mainly white, with features picked out in enamels and gilt. Her lower body is draped in a wrap, which winds over her right arm, leaving her breasts exposed. Her brown hair falls just over her shoulders. The cushion is decorated to the front with a gold cord fixed by three tasselled rosettes. White earthenware moulded in three parts and pearlware glazed. Painted with brown, red and flesh-pink enamels, and gilt. The underside is concave and glazed. The back is moulded, with a vent hole 7cm from the bottom. Height, whole, 26 cm, width, whole, 14.6 cm, depth, whole, 9.7 cm, circa 1840-1865. Victorian.

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.

Flat-backed figure. Girl kneeling in prayer. Mary Magdalene. Unidentified factory, Staffordshire. The rectangular base is encircled by a thick gilt line. The girl kneels on her right knee, on a cushion; she gazes upwards with pious expression and her hands are raised in prayer, The figure is mainly white, with features picked out in enamels and gilt. Her lower body is draped in a wrap, which winds over her right arm, leaving her breasts exposed. Her brown hair falls just over her shoulders. The cushion is decorated to the front with a gold cord fixed by three tasselled rosettes. White earthenware moulded in three parts and pearlware glazed. Painted with brown, red and flesh-pink enamels, and gilt. The underside is concave and glazed. The back is moulded, with a vent hole 7cm from the bottom. Height, whole, 26 cm, width, whole, 14.6 cm, depth, whole, 9.7 cm, circa 1840-1865. Victorian.

Image data

Accession Number: C.1021-1928
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Aperture: f/27.0
Focal length: 120
Camera: Hasselblad H3DII-31
Photographer name: Andrew Norman
Image height: 1025 pixels
Image width: 769 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.0 (Windows)
Filesize: 410.16kB
Exposure time: 1/60
ISO Speed: 100
Fnumber: 27/1

Key words

19th Century bended knee British School clasped hands cushion draped drapery earthenware enamel enamelled English female female nude Fitz_AA gilded gilt girls glazed hands hands clasped kneeling Magdalen Mary Magdalene moulded nude pearlware piety pious pottery prayer praying religion religious St Mary Magdalen Staffordshire Pottery Victorian young youth

Citation for print

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


            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024)
            "Staffordshire figure of a girl kneeling in prayer"
            Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-3853644187 Accessed: 2024-12-18 21:06:45

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-3853644187
            |title=Staffordshire figure of a girl kneeling in prayer
            |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-12-18 21:06:45|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-214027

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/C_1021_1928_1_201702_adn21_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Girl kneeling in prayer"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Staffordshire figure of a girl kneeling in prayer</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>