CIRCA 1785, INCISED MODEL NO. 227 TO BOTH

Details

A PAIR OF DERBY 'MANSION HOUSE' DWARFS OR 'GROTESQUE PUNCHES'
CIRCA 1785, INCISED MODEL NO. 227 TO BOTH
Each moustached figure modeled wearing a comically large hat bearing an advertisement, one wearing a tasseled sash about his rotund belly, the other with playing cards on his shirt sleeves, a cane in one hand, both standing on a grassy mound base applied with flowers
7 in. (17.8 cm.) high (2)

Lot Essay

These popular figures are thought to either be based upon Chelsea's models of dwarfs after engravings by Callot or, more likely, the dwarfs that stood outside the Mansion House in London. This second hypothesis seems more likely as the advertisements on their hats seem to allude to the practice of 'attaching advertisements to the Mansion House figures'. See Franklin Barrett and Arthur Thorpe, Derby Porcelain, London, 1971, pp. 42-3.

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