
Fergus Gambon
Director
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Sold for £20,000 inc. premium
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Head of Sale
Provenance
Sotheby's sale, 27 August 1977
Bonhams sale, 8 April 2009, lot 21
A British private collection
Illustrated by Vic Schuler, Collecting British Toby Jugs (1994), p.110. The 'Midshipman' family comprises a small group of Toby jugs which share similar features of modelling and decoration. Examples occur in different sizes, the larger models representing Lord Rodney. The smaller versions are all similarly modelled with distinctive faces, neckties and partially unbuttoned waistcoats but are given different attributes. Apart from the tailor, fiddlers, a drummer, a viola da gamba player, farriers, topers, sportsmen and midshipmen are recorded. The tailor is among the rarest, only three examples being recorded by Schuler. A group of Midshipman family jugs is illustrated by Sir Harold Mackintosh Bt., Early English Pottery Figures (1938), p.39, 90-94 and others by Captain R K Price, Astbury, Whieldon, and Ralph Wood Figures, and Toby Jugs (1922), nos 67, 70 and 71. These include the other two recorded tailors.
The dating of jugs from the Midshipman family has long been a source of discussion. They were once thought to date to the 1740s or 50s and to be linked to Astbury-type wares. However, a Fiddler jug with the inscription 'Richard Darby Sep 21 1787' sold at Sotheby's 16 October 1967, lot 173 has proved that they were made later in the 18th century, tying in with the larger jugs representing Lord Rodney.