Group of Boy Musicians: C.1222-1928

Titles

Group of Boy Musicians

Maker(s)

Pottery: Doulton & Co.
Modeller: Tinworth, George

Entities

• Figure group

Categories

• Stoneware
• Salt-glazed stoneware
• Art Pottery
• Doulton Lambeth ware

Description

Salt-glazed stoneware figure group of four musicians.

The group is partly moulded and partly hand modelled from stoneware, painted with a buff coloured slip and salt-glazed. The four boy musicians wear only loin cloths and caps. Three sit on chairs; two of them are back to back with a tambourine in one hand which he is kicking with his outstretched foot; the other is in the middle, facing forward and playing the bagpipes. The fourth musician sits above the others, on the back of the middle chair; he wears a pointed hat and holds a cymbal in each hand, resting or banging them on the side musicians’ flat caps. The base is 16-sided, but roughly oblong in shape. The underside is flat with three round vent holes, one under each chair.

Notes

History note: Mr Morrall [or Monsall?] of 48 Liverpool Street, Stoke on Trent. Bought on 10 March 1928 for £4 and ten shillings, by Dr Glaisher, Trinity College, Cambridge.

Legal notes

Dr J.W.L. Glaisher Bequest

Place(s) associated

• Lambeth ⪼ Middlesex ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1928) by Glaisher, J. W. L., Dr

Dating

19th Century, Late#
Victorian
Circa 1885 CE - 1890 CE

Note

Doulton and Co, founded c.1815, originally made utility ceramics, with some stoneware jugs and bottles. In the mid 1860s, Henry Doulton introduced decorative stoneware and architectural terracotta and, over the next 50 years, employed some 400 artists, many of them Lambeth School of Art students. Doulton championed individuality, innovation and versatility, and his modellers and decorators used a wide range of techniques and decorative treatments in producing both unique, artist-signed, and limited edition pieces. From 1872 the business expanded into faience and in the 1880s opened a factory at Burslem, Staffordshire, where bone china and other wares were made. In 1901, Edward VII granted the Royal warrant to the factory. Stoneware production at Lambeth reduced after 1914, and ceased in 1956.

George Tinworth (1843-1913 ) worked for his father, a wheelwright, whilst he studied modelling at Lambeth School of Art and the Royal Academy. He worked at Doulton & Co from 1866-1913, where he lead the introduction of decorative salt-glazed stoneware. His most important commissions were terracotta relief panels, of which he made some 500, including a reredos at York Minster and work for the Guards Chapel.

This group is related to a series of boy musicians, playing over 35 instruments, which Tinworth made between 1889-1912. He also made anthropomorphic mice and frogs; and similar studies set around salt-cellars. The Doulton mark on the base indicates it was made before 1891.

School or Style

Art Pottery