Earthenware flatbacks and figurines for mantelpiece decoration were first produced in Staffordshire in the late 1830s. The earliest datable figures appear to be of Queen Victoria. Production of earthenware figures continued throughout Victoria's lifetime, but although they were still made after her death in 1901, few appear to have been produced after 1905. During their heyday, however, they were produced in vast numbers, usually modelled after prints. They represented a wide variety of subjects but those of actors and actresses were especially popular.

This figurine represents the celebrated actor Edmund Kean (1787-1833) as Richard III, the role he first played to great acclaim at Drury Lane on 12 February 1814. Kean was the son of an actress at Drury Lane Theatre and as a child he was paraded as an infant phenomenon, billed as ‘The Celebrated Theatrical Child, Edmund Carey, not eleven years old'. He became a strolling player, dancer and tumbler with Richardson's company and worked in the provinces until he made his first adult stage appearance in 1804. It wasn't until 1814 however, when he appeared as Shylock at Drury Lane Theatre that he made his name and became known as the great but erratic actor described by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge as revealing Shakespeare by 'flashes of lightning'.