Metropolitan Museum - William the Hippo

Made in Italy for the Metropolitan Museum ceramic blue Hippo. Extract from the museum's web site ..."William" is a bright blue hippopotamus just under 8 inches high located in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Egyptian galleries. He is made of faience, a ceramic material that is fired at a high temperature, and is decorated with lotus blossoms, which represent the hippo's creative forces in nature. An Englishman, Captain H. M. Raleigh, and his family owned a picture of the hippopotamus, which they named William. In 1931 the captain wrote an article for the magazine Punch about his picture of William. The name caught on, and since that time the little blue hippo has been known as William to almost everyone.