Gentleman & Shoeshine Boy (Garrick)

A fashionably dressed gentleman, almost certainly the actor David Garrick: he wears a white frockcoat, pink waistcoat and red breeches, all with embroided gilt enrichments and white stockings, one of which is incised with underglaze decoration. He stands with his hat under arm, right foot raised, and takes snuff from his right hand. A shoe-shine boy wearing a yellow jacket, red breeches, pink stockings and a brimmed hat, kneels to brush the gentleman’s shoes.  All on a ‘grassy’ rococo moulded base partially within a tree-stump which forms a support to the figure. Dense body; clear glaze. Straw translucency. Base wiped of glaze. H. 5.5 in (13.9 cm).

Provenance: Anon, Bonhams, London December 2010, Lot 107.

Another, as Gallant with Bootblack, about 1750, MFA, Boston, Gift Mr and Mrs Sigmund Katz, Accession #1988.575, the McEuen Collection; illustrated Transactions, English Porcelain Circle,  (EPC) 1928, #1, Plate xix, and Yarbrough, 1996, Fig 59, p.39. 

Figures of the  fashionable en grande toilette were also produced at European factories and C18th and C19th figures en grande toilette appear to be relatively common.

Restoration to Garrick’s right arm, & left finger; Boy’s right hand; minor touch-ups to base.