Figure of Demosthenes

Ceramic figures often depicted literary or mythological characters as a means of representing knowledge and intellectual refinement. As a result, they became an integral part of the decoration of most middle-class or wealthy houses in the 1700s and early 1800s. This figure depicts the Athenian orator Demosthenes (384–322 BC) delivering one of his philosophical lectures. The adjacent plinth reinforces his identity with a small image of a man lecturing the sea, something Demosthenes was known to do, while Hermes, the Greek god of eloquence, hovers above.