CIRCA

produced during the last décade of the eighteenth century, and during the first quarter of that which followed, numerous exotic varieties of pipes in glazed brown stoneware. William Bragge obtained seventeen différent varieties from Brampton for his own collection ; and, despite the ail too brief descriptions in his catalogue, similar examples are easily recognised when they tum up. A duplicate of one of the varieties obtained by Bragge is illustrated in No. xvi. The fantastical costume in which the little figure is dressed forbids any attempt at accurate dating. Personally, I should be tempted to ascribe it to the last décade of the eighteenth cen ury. in which case it is probably the work of the Walton Pottery established by William Briddon in 1790.

The " hand and pipe ** motive, which appears in No. xviii., is a famiUar one to collectors of rariora nicotiana. During the latter part of the eighteenth century it frequently forms the basic motive of a pipe stopper. Pipes of this design were apparently made by two factories. In stoneware, with a lustrons reddishbrown glaze, they were produced at Brampton between 1790 and 1810, and though I know of no marked spécimens, they may perhaps be assigned, like the preceding pipe, to the " Walton Pottery." Among the seventeen brown glazed stoneware pipes obtained by Bragge from Brampton was an example of the *' hand and pipe " variety, together with a pipe formed as a recumbent figure, possibly intended for an old soldier, with a wooden leg. Both types are illustrated in The CoNNOissEUR for 1906 (Vol. xvi., p. 15, there No. vi.), and it is possible that thèse examples are those formerly in the Bragge collection. Not ail thèse ** hand and pipe ** pipes are Brampton stoneware. Many examples, coloured and glazed, are unquestionably of Stafifordshire make.

A second variety of Staffordshire make bears, like the example illustrated, a crimson heart in the palm of the

hand. There can be very little doubt that thèse pipes were made for the Ancient Order of Oddfellows, whose ** most important and best preserved symbol " was the Heart in Hand, emblem of any act of kindness. Properly, the fingers should be extended. An example from the same mould as the above is in the Willett collection. And another was in the Bragge collection (Catalogue No. A.c. 24).

The four-bowled pipe illustrated in No. xxii. has every appearance of being of Stafifordshire make. It is 15 inches long ; and, apart from its unusual construction, it possesses documentary interest in the shape of the date, 18 19, incised on the upper surface of the broad shoulder from which the four pipe bowls spring. The practice of smoking two, three or more blends of tobacco in separate bowls is, or was in the nineteenth century, fairly gênerai in Southern Russia. But the practice in England must hâve been an uncommon one ; though Stafifordshire '* snake pipes,'* similar to No. i., with three or four bowls, and straight pipes, similar to No. xxii., with three, five and seven bowls, are not unknown.

The last group of pipes (No. xxi.), on the évidence of their fashion, potting, glazing and the range of colours — variegated browns, greens and yellows — employed in their décoration must be attributed to one factory. From their outlines, they must be ascribed to the second quarter and the middle of the nineteenth century, a date which efifectually négatives the suggestion, put forward by a récent writer upon pipes, that they are Whieldon (1740-80). And they are, furthermore, too late in style to be the work of Dunderdale of Castleford, near Leeds (i 790-1 820). The possibilities would seem to lie, then, between either PhiUp Christian of Liverpool. or Leeds itself ; and the latter would appear to be the more Ukely, for the " ragged " pipe seemingly belongs to the second half of last century.

(Photographs by H. Hoyîe.)

No. XXII. — STAFFORDSHIRE FOUR-BOWLED PIPE