Parian, even though mass-produced, was not necessarily cheap. A good quality Parian bust, such as seen in illustration 21, might well have cost a pound or two wholesale in England. Much cheaper, and hence available to those who could not afford expensive ornaments, were what are today called Staffordshire figures: earthenware figures which in their own day were advertised in Canada as "fancy figures", "chimney ornaments", or simply as "images". Under the heading "EARTHENWARE", and in company with such down-to-earth articles as pie plates and blancmange moulds, "a variety of Fancy Figures" was advertised in MontrÄal by Robert Anderson (December 19, 1845). Wholesale, they probably cost him no more than a few pence each before shipping charges. As with Parian, fancy figures included a galaxy of Victorian personalities as well as imaginative figures and groups. On the left is a figure, dating from the 1870s, of the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, who visited Canada in 1860. The figure of Queen Victoria was first issued well before her death in 1901, but when that event took place it was re-issued and the legend on the base updated, as shown here. There was no effort to make these earthenware figures into careful portraits, as was the case with Parian. Their appeal was to a public satisfied with a simple representation at little cost. Few of these figures were ever marked by those who made them.
Courtesy: National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada (S81-14)
