Bullbaiting
ca. 1770–80
Medium
Lead-glazed earthenware
Dimensions
5 1/4 × 6 3/4 in. (13.3 × 17.1 cm)
Classification
Ceramics-Pottery
Culture
British, Burslem, Staffordshire
Department
European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of R. Thornton Wilson, 1937
Accession Number
37.19.1
Tags
Art Historical Context
Created around 1770–80 in the pottery center of Burslem, Staffordshire, this compact lead-glazed earthenware group captures the rough energy of bullbaiting, a once-popular spectacle in Georgian Britain. Ralph Wood the Younger, working within the celebrated Staffordshire tradition of molded figures, shaped the scene with lively modeling and a warm palette of colored glazes that highlight the straining dogs, the powerful bull, and the leafy base that anchors the composition. Such pieces were affordable decorative wares meant for middle-class mantelpieces, turning everyday pastimes into small-...
About the Artist
Ralph Wood the Younger · 1748–1795
Ralph Wood the Younger was born in Burslem, Staffordshire, in 1748, the son of the celebrated potter Ralph Wood the Elder and a member of a family that stood at the center of the Staffordshire ceramics industry during its most creative and internationally influential period. Growing up in the workshops of his father, he absorbed from childhood the technical traditions of English earthenware produc...