Staffordshire potteries built a sizeable trade on "national costume" figures through the Victorian period, decorative interpretations of dress from Scotland to Switzerland to, in this case, Albania, aimed at a domestic audience curious about the wider world but working entirely from illustrated sources rather than firsthand observation. This large group shows a farmer and his wife at harvest, sheaves of wheat gathered at their feet, he holding a sickle and she a basket, both dressed in costume meant to read as recognisably Albanian to a Victorian eye rather than as an exact rendering.
The scale of the piece is worth noting on its own; large pearlware groups like this one took considerably more skill and kiln space to produce successfully than the smaller cottage figures that make up most of the category, and survival rates for pieces this size tend to be lower given the added risk of firing and handling damage over a century and a half. The polychrome enamelling, worked in russet red, orange and green, holds up well against that scale, giving the group enough colour to read clearly from a distance rather than only rewarding close inspection.
Condition notes
Good antique condition. Crazing; losses to enamelling; chip to the man's nose; few small surface cracks.
