Pair of small Derby ‘season’ figures, Spring & Autumn, c. 1780

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Delightful pair of Derby ‘Seasons’, represented as children in contemporary clothing, with a seated girl holding a basket full of vine leaves & grapes representing Autumn, a fruiting vine garland to her head & flowering bocage behind ; her companion a seated boy representing Spring, a garland of flowers in his hands and on his head, a flowery bocage behind; on rococo scroll bases with gold & turquoise detailing.

Unmarked, circa 1780

13 cm high

Condition: minor losses & wear, some turquoise has mis-fired & flaked with small areas of overpainting to his jacket; they display well.

ref. Bradshaw p118 , E76 – “The Four Adolescent Seasons …. represented by seated children in contemporary dress, on scrolled bases before small bocages”. He illustrates the same two seasons, p119.

This boy ‘Spring’ matches Bradshaw’s E76 ‘Adolescent Seasons’, dated 1759-69, suggesting the earlier ‘Adolescent Seasons’ were two boys and two girls; Spring and Winter were boys, Summer and Autumn were girls. One difference to this example is the boy is absent the basket to hold his flowers, as illustrated by Bradshaw. This is probably just a case of it being overlooked by the ‘repairer’ – he has missed this component amongst the moulds when assembling the figure.

There is an earlier version of ‘Spring’ and ‘Summer’ (with no Winter or Autumn recorded), Bradshaw D21 from the ‘Pale Family c.1756-9. However, while the poses are very similar, they are much less refined in their modelling. The 1760’s versions could logically be a re-working of the same figures to make them more up-to-date.

These two make a lovely couple, with harmonious colours and decoration of base scrolls, indicating they have probably always been together.

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