Pair of Staffordshire Porcelain ‘Royal Children’, circa 1855
$645.00 AUD
Pair of Staffordshire figures of children riding on goats, possibly the ‘Royal Children’ of Queen Victoria, with applied sieved clay fur, painted in enamels and cobalt blue, on oval bases with gold line trim.
Circa 1855
15cm high
Condition: excellent, with minor signs of age
ref. Harding vol. 1, fig.598 for an example. Ever the sceptic, he notes they may not be of the ‘royal children’, and that they were made long after the royal subjects had grown up.
These figures have children who lack the three feathers the Royal Children wear in their hats, representing the Prince of Wales. They may therefore just be whimsical ‘children riding goats’.
Why Royalty & Goats? When Queen Victoria ascended the British throne in 1837, she received a fine pair of Tibetan goats as a present from the Shah of Persia. From these, a ‘Royal Goatherd’ was bred at Windsor. By the time the children were born, the goats were used to tow a miniature carriage just big enough for them to drive – and this caught the public’s imagination. These figures of children riding goats were obviously a talking point about the young royals and their childhood at Windsor.
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