Figure
Category
Ceramics
Date
1700 - 1829
Materials
Faience (tin-glazed earthenware), on a stone plinth
Measurements
680 mm (Height) x 290 mm (Depth); 540 mm (Length)
Place of origin
Rouen
Order this imageCollection
Biddulph Grange Garden, Staffordshire
NT 104496
Summary
Figure of a lion, faience (tin-glazed earthenware), its head turned to the right, seated on its haunches with the right forepaw placed on the ground (corresponding to the sejant or ‘sitting’ heraldic position) and the left forepaw resting on a scrolling shield or cartouche, its tail curved around its lower back, probably French, possibly made in Rouen, eighteenth or early nineteenth century, decorated in yellow, blue and red on white. On a stone plinth.
Full description
Although this lion figure is European, it was given a ‘Chinese’ significance by being placed in the ‘China’ area of the Biddulph Grange garden. Figures of lions had long featured in Chinese Buddhist art, being placed as symbolic guardians near the entrances to temples. Small Chinese porcelain figures of Buddhist lions were exported to Europe from the seventeenth century onwards, where they were used to decorate upper-class interiors and became emblems of ‘China’. They are also thought to have partly inspired the production of European faience lion figures from the early eighteenth century onwards. That association between Chinese and European ceramic lions may, consciously or unconsciously, have prompted James and Maria Bateman and Edward Cooke to place this French faience lion figure in their ‘Chinese’ garden. There are references in Cooke’s diary to buying ‘a pair of Urbino lions’ (which may in fact refer to this lion and its lost pair) for James Bateman, as well ‘Chinese kylins’ (i.e. figures of the Chinese mythical beast qilin, see NT 104566). For the significance of lions in Chinese art see Patricia Bjaaland Welch, Chinese Art: A Guide to Motifs and Visual Imagery, Tokyo, Rutland (Vermont) and Singapore, Tuttle Publishing, 2008, pp.135–6. For the quotes from Edward Cooke’s diary, see Peter Hayden, Biddulph Grange, Staffordshire: A Victorian Garden Rediscovered, London, George Philip in association with the National Trust, 1989, p.104.
Provenance
Probably purchased by Edward Cooke (1808-80) for James Bateman (1811-97) at the time of the creation of the garden at Biddulph Grange; acquired with the garden by the National Trust, with support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and a public appeal, 1988.