I bought this early nineteenth century Staffordshire Pearlware Tobacco Jar last year without giving it too much thought. The lion finial caught my eye, I do love cats and the price was right. Described as antique porcelain, it was another instance of something being in the wrong place at the right time.
I didn’t realize until it arrived just how exquisite this jar was. There’s something about the scale that makes it especially precious. Maybe it’s the way you instinctively cup your hands around it to pick it up.
It would have once had an inverted inner lid with a lamb finial which is now missing. Apparently this acted as a tamper for the tobacco. The base was cleanly broken in two sometime in its long history and repaired to a high standard. The glaze has been varnished over on the underside and interior but there is no overpainting on the exterior that I can see. Best to just leave it alone.
A similar box with inner lid is illustrated in Volume 3 of Myrna Schkolne’s “Staffordshire Figures 1780 to 1840”. That example has the same lion finial but different sprigs to the base (topers). There is an example with the hounds base in the archives of John Howard Antiques but it has different finials. So there must have been a degree of mix and match back at the factory when these were made.
I find the scene of the hounds killing the fox a bit gruesome but then that was ‘the hunt’ and part of aristocratic life.
10.6 cm in height.
