Greyhound
Category
Ceramics
Date
1840 - 1860
Materials
Earthenware with coloured glazes, gilding and overglaze enamels
Measurements
90 mm (Height); 140 mm (Length)
Place of origin
Staffordshire
Order this imageCollection
Hill Top, Cumbria
NT 641428
Summary
Pen or quill stand, earthenware, in the form of a figure of a greyhound lying on an oval base with its front paws crossed, a small hole at the centre front edge to hold the pen or quill, probably Staffordshire, ca 1850. The dog with orange-brown overglaze colours, the base with a deep blue glaze with a band of gilding above the bottom edge.
Full description
This object is part of the collection at Hill Top. Beatrix Potter purchased this farmhouse and working farm in the Lake District village of Near Sawrey in 1905, using the profits from her books. After her marriage to William Heelis in 1913, Beatrix relocated permanently to Sawrey. The couple made nearby Castle Cottage their home, but Beatrix spent as much time as she could at Hill Top. As well as a space for work and creativity – and the location for many of her famous tales – it became an intensely personal sanctuary for her. Beatrix knew exactly how she would decorate Hill Top and she arranged its interiors carefully and deliberately. She wrote: ‘I would have old furniture…it is not as expensive as modern furniture, and incomparably handsomer…’ Once she had renovated the farmhouse, she filled it with examples of local furniture and treasured heirlooms, like her grandmother’s warming pan and a set of plates decorated with designs by her father. The object is a pen or quill holder, which was used at a desk. Quills were pens made from feathers, sharpened to a point, that were dipped into ink for writing. The end of the quill was placed into the small hole at the front of the object. The object is described in a 1946 inventory of Hill Top, made after Beatrix’s death and after the property had been prepared for the visiting public: ‘One Rockingham figure of a greyhound, lying on a blue-base inkpot’ (item 131). At that time, it was displayed in the corner cupboard of her Sitting Room, as part of a dense, eclectic arrangement of ceramics. The Sitting Room was a fairly informal space on the upper floor of Hill Top that was used by Beatrix for entertaining friends and family. The Rockingham factory at Swinton, near Rotherham, was an important producer of fine porcelain animal figures during first half of the nineteenth century. Although the quill holder is described as ‘Rockingham’ in the Hill Top inventory, it was most probably made in Staffordshire, about 1850. Traditional Staffordshire figures seem to have held an appeal for Beatrix Potter – perhaps because they often depict rural subjects. Potter had a number on display at Hill Top and also made a few sketches of Staffordshire figures, which are now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (LC 16/A/2, BP.372, LC 16/A/1).
References
Pope 1999: Clive Mason Pope, A-Z of Staffordshire Dogs: A Potted History, Suffolk: Antique Collectors’ Club, 1999, figures 14, 15, pp. 48-9 Telford 1946: Mrs Telford, Catalogue of the Contents of Hill Top, Sawrey, typed manuscript, 1946, item 131