Rare Redware Sculpture - Drunkard Astride A Keg

Normandy region, France
Circa: Mid 19thC
Size: 9 1/2" (h)" x 7" (w)" x 8" (l)
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Drunk with Power! This 19th century French Folk Art features a drunken magistrate astride a keg with a bottle and a big mug. It comments on the government official who is “drunk with power,” or as Lord Acton would say, "Power corrupts, and absolute power, corrupts absolutely."

This 19th century French Folk-Art earthenware ceramic sculpture has a manganese glaze with details highlighted with kaolin slip to its teeth, eyes, hands, and his well formed cap.

This highly stylized piece of French folk-art is a variant of the Dutch Bobbejak, which also depicts a man atop a cistern and is related to the English Toby-Jug. They are essentially Bacchus personified, with jovial men (sometimes women) modeled as representations of alcohol's fuzzy and foggy sides.

A related example by the same hand is illustrated in a French Folk-Art Pottery book on ceramics from the Cotentin or Cherbourg Peninsula, part of Normandy in Northwestern France. These provincial works tend to be more folky than the refined and formal works from metropolitan Paris.

The Connecticut Historical Society has a trade sign for the Bacchus Inn in Norwich depicting a man atop a keg. 

Literature: A related example is pictured in, Poteries et céramiques anciennes du Cotentin by Leberruyer Pierre, Lepoitevin Lucien, p. 168, plate 99.

Condition: Excellent save for apparent loss to some flower-petal decoration on the backside that looks original to the firing.

Price: $9,800.00

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