Those Faces! Antique Miniature Staffordshire Poodles Bearing Gifts

THE STORY - Whenever I am looking through Auction Catalogues for Staffordshire Poodles, I usually find myself passing quickly over the many I see proudly holding a basket often full of flowers in their mouths, but not with this pair, they stopped me in my tracks. For me they combined wonderfully the naive charm I love with these early Staffordshire figurines with the more formal pose with the baskets. And I think it really was their faces that made it work for me with their wonderful eyebrows above the little black dots for eyes and each with a lovely pink muzzle and large nostrils as they carry their blackberry coloured baskets. The decoration although naive is also I think fine in quality giving that wonderful animation to the faces. This pair of Poodles are almost certainly from one of the Staffordshire Potteries, I believe porcelain and I do think are likely to be quite early dating to circa 1860. They both sport the fashionable Lion Clipped Coat, with shredded clay being used for their manes, their tails and the cuffs on their back legs. The shredded clay decoration has also been used for the foliage in their baskets, no brightly coloured flowers for this pair, it is more like they are offering you a basket of moss. They stand on shaped oval bases with a lightly impressed pattern and the remains of a gold coloured line along the edge.

AGE - 1860

CONDITION - Each of the Poodles are in good condition. There is what looks like a little chip to the front of the shredded moss on the smaller poodle, which can best be seen in the third photo. And there are a couple of tiny nibbles out of the underside of the edge of the bases of each of the Poodles. The Gold coloured line running around the edge of the bases has worn with age and this particularly true on the front of the smaller Poodle again best seen in the third photo. There is some light crazing to the glaze but this has really only been picked up in the photos. And there is of course the dirt they have acquired during their long lives.

DIMENSIONS (Approx) OF THE MARGINALLY LARGER POODLE - Height 3&1/4" / 8cm, Width 2&1/2" 6.5cm, Depth 1&1/4" / 3cm.

I find myself doubtful that I will ever be listing another pair of Staffordshire Poodles holding their baskets. But who knows it is the beauty of the randomness of the hand painted features that for me give these Staffordshire figurines their appeal. Maybe if those eyes had been just a little bigger, the eyebrows just a single strong line and the nostrils smaller then I would have moved quickly on to the next lot. But with those faces I wasn't going anywhere.