Lot 193
STAFFORDSHIRE POTTERY DR SYNTAX FIGURE GROUP
CIRCA 1825
Auction: Day One: 14 March 2012 From 10am
Description
Sherratt type, the figures seated at a table, engaged in a game of cards
16cm high, 23cm wide
Note:Doctor Syntax was one of the early nineteenth century's most popular literary characters. He was the brainchild of Thomas Rowlandson, the eminent caricaturist and watercolorist. Traditionally, a book's text inspires its illustrations, but in the case of Doctor Syntax, the text was written by William Combe in verse form to accompany Rowlandson's artwork. Doctor Syntax appealed to the English love of the absurd, and Staffordshire's figure potters capitalized on the comic theme by producing their own interpretations of the eccentric clergyman. Doctor Syntax does indeed play cards in the book published in 1821, but that illustration differs markedly from this figure group. It seems that the story alone inspired the creation of the group.