Pied Piper – My Royal Doulton Character Jug For September 2013

The Pied Piper was one of the very first Royal Doulton character jugs I purchased on an on-line auction, the main attraction for me was firstly his character filled face and secondly the pipe and rats handle.  I mean just look at that face, granted, I’m not sure that I would have followed him into the great unknown as a child, but as an adult, I find his character filled face very intriguing.

This Royal Doulton character jug was designed by Geoff Blower and was issued in 3 sizes:

– D6403   Large   1954 – 1981

– D6462   Small   1957 – 1981

– D6514   Mini   1960 – 1981

The original prototype was modelled with only 1 rat on the handle and in a different colourway, as above, but was adapted to the more familiar version featured below:

A poem by Robert Browning, The Pied Piper Of Hamelin is based on an old legend from a town in Brunswick.  The town is crawling with rats, and the mayor and city elders decide to enlist the services of a stranger to rid them of the vermin for a fee of one thousand guilders.  The stranger earns his fee by playing his pipe so beautifully that the rats follow the music and drown in the River Weser.  The piper’s fee however goes unpaid, so the strange piper plays again, but this time all the children of the town are enchanted by his beautiful music and they follow him never to be seen again.

For more on Royal Doulton please visit royaldoultonguide.com

Johnny Appleseed – My Royal Doulton Character Jug Of The Month – June 2013

Royal Doulton Character Jug – Johnny Appleseed – D6372
Designed by Harry Fenton
Issued from 1953 – 1969

 

The Legend Of Johnny Appleseed from Wikipedia:

Johnny Appleseed was born John Chapman in Leominster, Massachusetts in 1774.  He was was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, including the northern counties of present day West Virginia. He became an American folk hero while still alive, due to his kindhearted, generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples. He was also a missionary for The New Church (Swedenborgian).

The popular image is of Johnny Appleseed randomly spreading apple seeds everywhere he went. In fact, he planted nurseries rather than orchards, erected fences around them to protect them from livestock, left the nurseries in the care of a neighbour who sold trees on shares, and returned every year or two to tend the nursery. Although apples grown from seed are rarely sweet or tasty, apple orchards with sour apples were popular among the settlers because apples were mostly used for producing hard cider and apple jack.  In some periods of the settlement of the Midwest, settlers were required by law to plant orchards of apples and pears in order to uphold the right to the claimed land.  So Johnny Appleseed planted orchards that made for popular real estate on the frontier.  His first nursery was planted on the bank of Brokenstraw Creek, South of Warren, Pennsylvania. Next, he seems to have moved to Venango County along the shore of French Creek, but many of these nurseries were located in the Mohican area of north-central Ohio. This area included the towns of Mansfield, Lucas, Perrysville, and Loudonville.

 

The First Royal Doulton Character Jug Modelled On An Actual Person – John Peel

John Peel was the first person to be immortalised in the form of a Royal Doulton character jug.  Designed by Harry Fenton, issued in 4 sizes from 1936 to 1960.

John Peel was a famous huntsman who for 40 years hunted with a pack of hounds on the fells of Cumbria in North-East England, as the slopes were too steep for horses, the hunt was often carried out on foot.  John Peel enjoyed a drink and each kill was celebrated by the hunting party at the nearest hostelry.

 There was also a song written by John Graves about the famous huntsman:

‘D’ye ken John Peel with his coat so grey?

D’ye ken John Peel at the break of day?

D’ye ken John Peel when he’s far, far away

With his hounds and his horn in the morning?’

 It is also believed that this is how the Police earned the nickname ‘The Peelers’

It seems that based on the song, John Peel’s coat was grey so it’s a bit of a mystery as to why Harry Fenton chose to portray him in a red coat . . .

For more on Royal Doulton visit royaldoultonguide.com

How A Royal Doulton Character Jug Is Made

Each Royal Doulton character jug begins its journey in the creative mind and on the sketch pad of the sculptor who then proceeds to bring his character to life in the form of a clay model.  Once the clay model meets the extremely high Royal Doulton standards, the master mould maker’s expertise are then called upon to create a master mould from plaster of Paris.  This is a highly specialised process that has to capture every nuance and all the character of the original clay model.  From the master mould a working case is made and it is from this that all future moulds are produced.  In order to ensure accurate reproduction of the sculptors original creation, each mould is used only a small number of times.

A liquid mixture of clay and other finely ground ingredients prepared to ‘Royal Doulton’s own formulation is poured into the working mould, once the mixture is set to the correct thickness it is carefully removed from the mould.

Each character jug is then left to dry thoroughly in controlled temperatures before receiving its first firing – at temperatures up to 1150 degrees Celsius.

Skilled artists then take over and hand-paint each character jug with Royal Doulton’s own specially developed ceramic colours to give each character jug an individual quality, the jug is then fired once again.

The character jug is then dipped in a specially developed liquid glaze and fired for a third time to create a permanent transparent coating that protects the colours and gives the character jug the unmistakable Royal Doulton luster.

For more on Royal Doulton visit royaldoultonguide.com

Royal Doulton – A Collage

Sometimes a picture is really worth a thousand words….

The mystery of the white character jug

A few years ago I came across a Fatboy white jug on an online auction, although it appeared to have all the detail and features of the colour version in my collection, I had never heard of the unpainted white version and was instantly intrigued.  The auction didn’t have long to run, so any research time was non-existent, needless to say, this didn’t stop me from putting in a bid or two and eventually winning the jug.  At this point I made some enquiries and  soon realised that there are two schools of thought regarding the mystery of white Royal Doulton jugs.

The first school of thought and also the first explanation I was given is that these jugs were produced during war time when material restrictions were in place.  This made perfect sense to me as the jugs both carry the same ‘A’ back stamp, which dates them from between 1939 and 1955, which would put them in the correct time frame to have been produced during the second world war.

Then I did a little more research on my own and came across the second school of thought and this was that all white jugs with the exception of Churchill and McCallum are factory rejects.  I was less than charmed to hear I had spent my hard earned money on a ‘reject’ and was for obvious reasons, initially very reluctant to buy into this theory.  I must have been one of many non-believers as it was then explained how I would go about proving to myself that I had indeed purchased a factory reject.  I was to inspect the body of the jug while comparing it to the painted version and there was no doubt that on closer inspection I would indeed find the flaw that caused it to be rejected by factory quality control at an early stage.  Once I laid my painted Fatboy next to his pale cousin, it didn’t take me long to spot the flaw, which in my case was a pin prick size hole at the back of Fatboy’s head.

It also turns out that these were not war time productions at all as the restriction forbidding decoration was applied to tableware for the home market only and jugs produced between 1939 and 1946 were painted as usual, but were marked ‘For Export Only’.

What are your thoughts on the mystery?

Maybe you belong to another school of thought entirely?

Have you any of the pale cousins in your collection?

Visit royaldoultonguide.com and send me a mail as I am as intrigued today as I was on the day I bought my factory rejected, but much loved by me, white Fatboy.  

P.S. (It also helps to know that these once ‘rejects’ are now far more valuable than their painted cousins.)