Vintage view: flatback figures

Kya deLongchamps says flatbacks should not be confused with earlier, more expensive figures.

IN the early 18th and 19th centuries good society was in a quiet hysteria for porcelain figurines. Complex to produce, beautifully decorated and screamingly expensive, romantic imaginings in hard paste porcelain by Meissen, Nymphenburg, Chelsea and Derby, were the frosted cherry for the genteel interior of a well cultured home.

Poorer households who could never afford such masterpieces had a ready alternative from the 1800s produced in the potteries of Staffordshire, its surrounding counties and some parts of Scotland.