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Jim Keeling with the terracotta character

CALIBAN, the ill-treated servant of Prospero in Shakespeare's play The Tempest, has been rebuffed once again.

A terracotta statue of the deformed character was created by celebrated potter Jim Keeling, of Whichford Pottery near Shipston, as part of series of four Shakespearean characters for a garden in Japan.

The other herms' - the technical term for a bust on square plinth often seen in Baroque gardens - were Prospero, Hamlet and Ophelia.

But the statue of Caliban was considered too frightening by its prospective owners, so was substituted by Julius Caesar.

Mr Keeling, whose internationally-renowned pottery makes upmarket flowerpots for the rich and famous, including Prince Charles, said: "They thought he looked too like their nature spirits and might scare the middle-class Japanese ladies."

Mr Keeling also had to alter his Hamlet so that the skull he was originally holding was replaced with a book.

However, the potter was not downcast, as by having to keep Caliban he now intends to make an Ariel to go with him.

"I don't mind. He is my favourite," he said.

The statues, which retail at around £4,000 each, are a relatively new departure for the pottery.

Mr Keeling was commissioned to create three one-and-a-quarter life-size statues of composers Wagner, Mozart and Verdi by Martin Graham of Longborough Festival Opera last year.

"They were rather well received and I have had orders from that," said Mr Keeling, who currently has a commission from the Far East to make a statue of Rodin's Thinker in the form of a Japanese monkey.

Sculpting in terracotta has always been popular with artists, he said.

"It has a freedom to it. You can get a liveliness to sculpting in clay, which is a very fluid material."

10:26am Thursday 27th March 2008

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