An English lead-glazed earthenware miniature bear jug and cover, second half 20th century

Philips, London, 30 November 1988, lot 206 (as 18th century).

This piece is part of a small group of English pottery purporting to be of 18th century date which appeared on the market in the late 1980s and was subsequently found to be of modern date. The pieces were made with an intent to deceive and cleverly conceived using techniques, forms and decorative elements typical of earlier Staffordshire-made objects. The group is discussed in detail by Pat Halfpenny in Peter Williams and Pat Halfpenny, A Passion for Pottery: Further Selections from the Henry H. Weldon Collection, New York, 2000, pp. 331-346, and similar jugs from this group are illustrated p. 336, fig. 4.