Rye Pottery

The Wife of Bath

Rye Pottery’s hand-made & painted Wife of Bath was the very first pottery figure we designed based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. As, arguably, the most famous pilgrim from Chaucer’s incredible work, she continues to be one of our most popular characters in the collection. We love the fact she’s one of the best-known characters in English literature – and she’s female. She’s the perfect unique gift for the literature medieval buff in your life.

A worthy woman all her life, what’s more

She’d had five husbands, all at the Church door

Apart from other company in youth,

No need just now to speak of that, forsooth.

The Wife of Bath is the only pottery figure in the series modelled by sculptor/painter Gordon Davies and was originally conceived as a one-off character for Canterbury Cathedral’s gift shop. In her early days she was hand-painted only in Cobalt Blue & White, but today her decoration now ties in with the range’s medieval colour palette of Cobalt Blue, Terracotta, earthy Browns and a soft Sherwood Forest Green.

Take a look at the short video below to watch our talented team painting her using free-hand brushwork.