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Figure of Nobody
Pottery:
Brislington Pottery
(Possibly)
Pottery:
uncertain
Tin-glazed and painted earthenware vessel in the form of a man smoking a pipe, initialled and dated 'M/RM/1675'
Buff earthenware, moulded, pierced, tin-glazed, and painted in blue, pale turquoise-green, yellow, and orange. Nobody stands with his feet together, his left hand resting on his hip, and his right hand outstretched and holding a pipe which he is puffing. The pipe was made separately and attached. The roughly circular mound base has a pierced border of single holes alternating with pairs of smaller holes, some of which are filled with glaze. The underside is initialled and dated 'M/RM/1675'
History note: Cyril Andrade, London, from whom purchased on 13 October 1926 for £21 by Dr J.W.L. Glaisher, FRS, Trinity College, Cambridge
Dr. J.W.L. Glaisher Bequest
Height: 23.3 cm
Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1928-12-07) by Glaisher, J. W. L., Dr
17th Century, Late
Charles II
Production date:
dated
AD 1675
: dated
Nobody is a non-existent person who is blamed for mishaps and minor misdemeanours. By the late sixteenth century he was envisaged as a bodiless man whose head and arms projected from voluminous breeches, as depicted in an illustration of Nobody on the title page of Nobody and Somebody, a play published in London in 1606. Although fashions changed, this image of Nobody persisted, and the delftware figure of 1675 is very close to the earlier illustration, except that he holds a pipe.
This figure was earlier attributed to London, probably Southwark, but Brislington Pottery has been suggested as an alternative.
Two more delftware Nobodies have survived: one, dated 1682, is at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, and the other is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, where there is also a Chinese porcelain version. The last two have hat-shaped covers, and it seems likely that the others also had hats when new.
Decoration
composed of
high-temperature colours
( blue, pale turquoise-green, yellow, and orange)
Base
Diameter 10.6 cm
buff
Earthenware
Tin-glaze
Moulding
: Buff earthenware, moulded in parts, tin-glazed, and painted in blue, pale turquoise-green, yellow, and orange.
Tin-glazing
Accession number: C.1433-1928
Primary reference Number: 71996
Old object number: 4440
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
Mirador deep zoom
IIIF Manifest
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Figure of Nobody" Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/71996 Accessed: 2024-11-21 23:29:45
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/71996
|title=Figure of Nobody
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-11-21 23:29:45|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
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/objects/object-71996
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/aa30/C_1433_1928_1_201407_kly25_mas.jpg"
alt="Figure of Nobody"
class="img-fluid" />
<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Figure of Nobody</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
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