Featured Odd little lion, Staffordshire type, lid?

I don't think this is either old or worth anything, but I would like to know how to describe it. The lion on a base is of a rather flat-faced Staffordshire type, I think, and resembles a dog but is identifiable by its tail. There are no signs of age on this, and no marks. I think the base has been painted brown to resemble wood. It came in a job lot of oddments at an auction, and I live in England. What I would like to know is, does anyone recognise this, and do you think it might have been a lid for some kind of box? The base is over-large for the lion, as if the lion was just a handle for a lid. It is about 6 inches long. Any ideas welcome!

 

Could easily be a lid. I would guess French or German (at least continental) rather than English.

 

Thanks very much for this! I hadn't thought continental, but there is something a bit different to the normal Staffordshire look about him, and I think you may well be right. I will leave out the Staffordshire tag while searching, and also conentrate on boxes.

 

A pot lid and it might be food related, we used lions as symbols. I think he may be as early as late 18th. And might well be British.

 

Wow, thank you! I will keep a very open mind, and be happy with whatever I find, if I can manage to identify him. I did once have a very small blue and white tureen in a willow pattern, with a little, very simple lion finial, about 1820 I think, but that lion was glazed blue and looked nothing like this. What bothers me is that there is absolutely no sign of wear or crazing on this. If it is a pot lid then it probably wasn't used and washed in a well-stocked kitchen, maybe it was kept high up on a shelf and never taken down until someone moved it and dropped the pot! I think I will post this on a Staffordshire pottery forum, to see if anyone recognises it, and report back.

 

I think it may have been the lid to a pot which some kind of foodstuff was sold in. That happened: and people then kept the things as ornament.

 

Yes, I can see that, it might have been just put up as an ornament afterwards. Can you suggest any search terms for such an object? I have found that the solutions is often found by someone searching with more inventive search terms than I can think of, and I waste many hours looking in the wrong direction.

 

Hm. Meat paste pot or potted shrimp pot or perhaps honey pot. Pot lids are a thing too.

Oh, or relish pot.