Athos D6439.

1956 saw the first set of Doulton Character Jugs introduced, quite some time after the original Doulton ‘face jugs’ or as they quickly became known character jugs were introduced in 1934. 

  
Porthos D6440.

Today we can hardly imagine a time when sets of jugs weren’t produced given the many themes from Royalty to Dickens that litter Doulton’s Character Jug Collection.

Aramis D6441.

Still Aramis, Porthos and Athos, the three heroes of Alexandre Dumas’ French adventure The Three Musketeers  were the original set. 

  
Original publicity photo for the original characters.

Whilst the original 3 were the creations of the legendary Max Henk, it was Stan Taylor who would eventually add their youthful friend D’Artagnan to the set in 1982 as a large jug and then the small and tiny in 1987. All characters and sizes save the table lighter remained in production until 1991, meaning that the set can be readily assembled by new collectors today and is a perfect example of how Doulton captured the publics imagination with these characters from legend! 

My thanks to Seaway China for the use of their photo library. C.E.