Doulton Figurine Nelson by John Broad

This Nelson is not an HN figurine but a Doulton Lambeth sculptural work — a distinct and considerably rarer category than the bone china figure range, and one that predates the Royal Doulton name itself. 

The piece was modelled by John Broad and issued in 1905 to mark the centenary of the Battle of Trafalgar and Nelson's death on 21 October 1805. Standing 8 inches tall and executed in green faience stoneware — one of Doulton Lambeth's distinctive earthenware bodies developed in the 1870s — it carries the Royal Doulton impressed backstamp of the period. Broad joined the Lambeth studio in 1873 and remained there until 1919, becoming the studio's foremost sculptor of classical and commemorative subjects. The Wiener Museum of Decorative Arts notes that "George Tinworth is famous for his Merry Musicians series while John Broad excelled in classical subjects" — a precise description of where his greatest strengths lay.

A Nelson issued at the centenary of Trafalgar, in faience stoneware by the Lambeth studio's leading classical sculptor, is an object of real historical weight and collecting significance. It predates the HN range by eight years and belongs to the artistic tradition of Lambeth studio pottery rather than to the commercial figurine market that followed. Collectors of Doulton Lambeth art pottery, Nelson memorabilia, and British commemorative ceramics from the Edwardian period all find particular interest here, and the overlap between those three communities makes this a piece with notably broad market reach.

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