But it must not be forgotten that, when once the fashion for "Whieldon ware" became general, other potteries came into line. At Liverpool this class of mottled and clouded ware was made, and also at the Castleford pottery, near Leeds, and consequently many unmarked examples may be attributed to these potteries. Some of the Castleford tortoiseshell plates are impressed "D.D. & Co."
=Early Staffordshire Art.=--Among the earlier figures of the Astbury pottery the elder Astbury worked from 1736 to 1743, and his son continued his traditions later. There are a number of quadrupeds and birds which are assigned by collectors to the elder Astbury, which are, although crude, extremely interesting as showing the experiments in coloured clays and in lead glazing. Agate figures of cats of intermingled clays, and diminutive figures of men, some six inches in height, with splashed or clouded decoration, all come into this indeterminate period. The figure in the group (p. 171) already referred to is a case in point.
In the illustration of a fine specimen of an agate cat, in height only 4 inches, the body colour is light grey with dark brown solid marbling, and the front and ears are splashed with blue. Another miniature animal figure belonging to this period is the salt-glaze jug in form of a bear, only 3-1/8 inches high (see illustration, p. 171).
WHIELDON TORTOISESHELL ANIMAL. (_In the collection of Col. and Mrs. Dickson._)
SPLASHED CREAM WARE ELEPHANT. (Staffordshire, about 1750. Height 3-3/4 inches.)
ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. Knight in green and cream; horse and base tortoiseshell.
EARLY STAFFORDSHIRE FIGURES. Old Women Hucksters.
(_In the collection of Mr. James Davies, Chester._)]
We illustrate two animals, one of the tortoiseshell variety, a beast of formidable appearance and having considerable power in the modelling and strongly suggestive of the jaguar, but it must be remembered that beasts as depicted in contemporary books have an inclination towards heraldic monsters such as "never were on land or sea." The splashed cream ware elephant, only 3-3/4 inches in height, is fairly well modelled. But these, in common with the many diminutive figures of a like nature, belong to a period when Staffordshire was endeavouring to found an English school of potters, blindly groping along in almost untutored fashion--lame in design and feeble in inventiveness. From out of this chaos it seems impossible that there should arise soul enough to set the fashion later--nearly fifty years later--to the continent of Europe, and make English earthenware the formidable rival in point of cheapness, and often in point of beauty, to anything produced on the Continent. But the earthenware of Staffordshire was able to teach new points in technique concerning body and glaze to the continental potter.