This charming English pearlware figure represents Summer, one of the traditional Four Seasons, personified as a young woman holding a cornucopia filled with the fruits of the harvest.
She stands in a garden setting, wearing a long flower-patterned dress decorated in the distinctive Prattware palette of blue, green, ochre, and brown.
The colors are applied with a lively, freely sponged technique that gives the figure much of its appeal.
The garden base is modeled with leafy foliage picked out in soft green, while the square plinth is decorated with blue and ochre sponging. Her simply painted face, softly modeled features, and colorful dress give the figure the engaging character associated with English country pottery of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Made in Staffordshire, England, circa 1790–1810, the figure is characteristic of pottery traditionally described as Prattware, a term referring to its distinctive underglaze colors rather than a particular maker.
Figures of the Four Seasons were popular in Georgian England. Summer, with her cornucopia of harvest fruits, also recalls Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture and abundance.
Date: Circa 1800 (1790–1810)
Origin: Staffordshire, England
Material: Pearlware pottery decorated in Prattware colors
Dimensions: 8.75 inches high; base 3.5 × 3.5 inches
Condition: Excellent.