Milk maid at work
This apparently unique figure group, circa 1825, portrays a once-common sight in parks and on street corners across Britain. In the era before refrigeration, milk cows had to be located within quick reach of consumers. As the French-born American merchant Louis Simond tells in his journal in 1811, in London women bearing milk pails went door to door dispensing a quota of milk that was “as big as an egg, being the allowance of a family; for it is necessary to explain, that milk is not here either food or drink, but a tincture,— an elixir exhibited in drops, five or six at most, in a cup of tea, morning and evening.”
More Figures of the month
Father Theobald Mathew
This is a very rare figure of Father Theobald Mathew administering the Temperance Pledge of abstinence.
French Soldier and English Sailor
This is a rare Crimean War figure of a French soldier and an English sailor, standing to either side of a gun emplacement.
Queen Victoria
This is a very rare, regal figure, possibly representing Queen Victoria at her coronation. It is unrecorded and no source painting has been located. It stands about 14” tall and, if it is Victoria at her coronation, would date to about 1838. If a pair to this figure ever surfaces, it would probably be Albert, […]
Ralph and Kate Nickleby
This is a very rare and fine pair of Staffordshire figures representing figures from Charles Dickens’ novel “Nicholas Nickleby”, published approximately 1838-39.
Sir William John Codrington
This is a rare figure of Sir William John Codrington. He was a British army officer who eventually became a general and then Commander in Chief of British forces in the Crimean War.
Tam O’Shanter and Souter Johnny
This is a rare pair of early figures of Tam O’Shanter and Souter Johnny, characters in the Robert Burns play “Tam O’Shanter”, written in 1790.
Membership
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