Royal Doulton Figurine Sweet & Twenty HN1298

Sweet & Twenty (HN1298) was designed by Leslie Harradine and issued from 1928 to 1969, standing 5.75 inches tall. It belongs to the Harradine Classics — and not merely as one of many: Applecross Antiques, among others, has described it as one of the most successful models Royal Doulton ever produced. The forty-one-year production run is evidence enough.

The title comes from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night — the song that Feste sings to Orsino, with the lines "Then kiss me, sweet and twenty, / Youth's a stuff will not endure." Harradine rendered the sentiment exactly: a young woman in a red dress lounging with easy elegance on a couch, the very image of youth in no particular hurry. It is a relaxed, intimate pose — not standing, not performing, simply existing with the unselfconscious grace of someone who knows she is worth looking at. HN1298 is the red and blue-green colourway, the original and most familiar version of the model.

Sweet & Twenty was produced in multiple colourways across several HN numbers over its long history, but HN1298 is the primary version and the one collectors most naturally seek. For a piece this well-known and this widely collected, finding an example in genuinely good condition remains a worthwhile exercise — forty-one years of production means it was made in quantity, but it was also loved in quantity, and fine examples are not as abundant as the run length might suggest.

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