Description
A rare English pottery figure of Martha Gunn in the form of a smoking pipe.
The figure is decorated in the Pratt colour palette.
EXHIBITION….IF THESE POTS COULD TALK.
This amusing figure would have a story to tell if it could only speak!
Interestingly although modelled as a pipe it does not function as one!
The piece is formed as the figure Martha Gunn who was a celebrity in her time. Celebrity was a feature of 18th and 18th century life just as it is today and pottery figures were used to represent people of interest in these times before TV and digital media. These pottery figures give a valuable insight into aspects of the social and historical significance in our British history.
Martha Gunn was known as a dipper and worked on the Brighton beach where she was famously known as King George’s favorite.A dipper helped customers to take a dip in the sea a rather whimsical notion to think that people actually needed help to take a dip.
Perhaps there was a bit more to dipping than the title suggests?
A poem of the time reads;
“To Brighton came he,
Came George III’s son.
To be bathed in the sea,
By famed Martha Gunn”.
It is said that King George appeciated Martha so much that she had full access to the royal kitchens in Brighton. I can see this chubby lady who must have been a bit of a character having a great time there.