English, ca 1890-1900. An Arts and Crafts nursery stove set with forty polychrome tiles, attributed to Minton and Wedgwood, each printed and hand-colored; ht. 29, wd. 38.5, dp. 22 in.The twelve tiles framing the front opening of the stove feature figural illustrations of the twelve months of the year, after 1870's designs by Helen J.A. Miles for Wedgwood. The twenty-eight tiles on the sides and top depict scenes from fairy tales, nursery rhymes and Aesop's fables after illustrations by Walter Crane (English, 1845-1915), mostly from his two famous children's books The Baby's Opera, originally published in 1877, and The Baby's Own Aesop, published in 1887.The stove was purchased in the 1930's by Charles C. Hobart, founder of the Hobart Brothers Company in Troy, Ohio, for his son Edward's nursery. The lot is accompanied by a binder of original receipts and correspondence regarding the stove from the Hobart family, publisher of Colonial Homes magazine (which featured the stove in 1994), Christie's New York and Leeds Metropolitan University. Provenance: Purchased from the William H. Jackson Company, New York City, 1936.