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WEDGWOOD AND HIS WORKS. 
 
“ Competition for cheapness rather than for excellence, a desire of selling 
 much in a little time, without a due regard to the taste and quality of the 
 productions, is a most frequent and certain cause of rapid decay both to the fine 
 arts and to manufactures; but that if purchasers should at any time, under the 
 fallacious appearance of saving, prefer mediocrity , it would then be impossible 
 for artists or manufacturers to pay the necessary attention to excellence, and 
 consequently to keep up, much less to improve, the quality of their works. 
 
 “ It is obvious, that all works must bear a price in proportion to the skill, the 
 time, the expense, and the risk, attending the invention and execution of them. 
 Pieces which, for these reasons, bear a high price, and are therefore by many 
 called dear , are in general, when justly estimated, the cheapest , and attended with 
 less profit to the maker than those which are called cheap .”—Extract from 
 Wedgwood’s Catalogue. 
 
- 1 
 
 
 I HAVE now the plcafurc to find that my imitation of this vafe r 
 after a ftri& comparifon with the original, has given pcrfeft fatisfac- 
 tion to the moil diftiuguilhed artifts and amateurs in Britain. 
 
 But for the fatisfa&ion of thol'c alfo who cannot have an oppor¬ 
 tunity of making luch comparifon thcmfelves, I have thought it 
 neceflary to have the accuracy of the copy authenticated in the 
 fullcft manner; and hare been honoured with tcftimonials for that 
 purpofc, by the noble poflcflbr of the vafe itfclf, his Grace the 
 Duke of Portland, —by Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. Prefident of 
 the Royal Society,—by the Eari. of Leicester, Prefident of the 
 Society of Antiquaries,—and by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Prefident 
 of the Royal Academy of Am, The latter is plcafed to fay that 
 he ** can venture to declare it a correft and faithful imitation, 
 “ both in regard to the general effedl, and the moft minute detail 
 “ of the parts.” (Signed) J. Reynolds,” 
 
 Ltitfjftr FuUi, 15th June, 1790. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 «• 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
£ 6 $*- 
 
 & u/yri'^dhac 2 . 6 - /tf */* <3 ■ 
 
 WEDGWOOD AND HIS WORKS. 
 
 A SELECTION OF HIS PLAQUES, CAMEOS, 
 
 MEDALLIONS, VASES, ETC. 
 
 FROM THE DESIGNS OF FLAXMAN AND OTHERS. 
 
 REPRODUCED IN PERMANENT PHOTOGRAPHY BY 
 
 THE AUTOTYPE PROCESS. 
 
 WITH A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND THE PROGRESS OF HIS 
 
 FINE-ART MANUFACTURES, 
 
 BY ELIZA METEYARD, 
 
 AUTHOR OF “ THE LIFE OF WEDGWOOD,” ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 BELL AND DALDY, YORK STREET, 
 
 COVENT GARDEN. 
 
“ If the day shall ever come, when England shall be as eminent in true taste as she 
 is now in economy of production, my belief is that that result will probably be due to no 
 other single man in so great a degree as Wedgwood. 
 
 ***** 
 
 “ I submit, however, that, considering all which England has done in the sphere of 
 pure beauty on the one side, and in the sphere of cheap and useful manufacture on the 
 other, it not only is needless, but it would be irrational, to suppose that she lies under any 
 radical or incurable incapacity for excelling also in that intermediate sphere, where the two 
 join hands, and where Wedgwood gained the distinctions which have made him illustrious. 
 I do not think that Wedgwood should be regarded as a strange phenomenon, no more 
 native to us and ours than a meteoric stone from heaven; as a happy accident, without 
 example, and without return. Rare indeed is the appearance of such men in the history 
 of industry : single it may, perhaps, have been among ourselves, for whatever the 
 merits of others, yet I for one should scruple to place any of them in the same class with 
 Wedgwood; no one is like him, no one, it may almost be said, is even second to him : 
 
 ‘ Nec viget quicquam simile aut secundum 
 
 but the line on which he moved is a line on which every one, engaged in manufacture of 
 whatever branch, may move after him and like him. And as it is the wisdom of 
 man universally to watch against his besetting errors, and to strengthen himself in his 
 weakest points, so it is the study and following of Wedgwood and of Wedgwood’s prin¬ 
 ciples, which may confidently be recommended to our producers as the specific cure for 
 the specific weakness of English industry. Of imagination, fancy, taste, of the highest 
 cultivation in all its forms, this great nation has abundance. Of industry, skill, per¬ 
 severance, mechanical contrivance, it has a yet larger stock, which overflows our narrow 
 bounds and floods the world. The one great want is, to bring these two groups of qualities 
 harmoniously together; and this was the peculiar excellence of Wedgwood; his excellence, 
 peculiar in such a degree as to give his name a place above every other, so far as I know, 
 in the history of British industry, and remarkable, and entitled to fame, even in the history 
 of the industry of the world.”— Speech of the Right Hon. IV. E. Gladstone at Burslem, 
 Oct. 26, 1863. 
 
 CHISWICK PRESS:—PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 HE vast improvement of English ornamental pottery in recent years, 
 
 the consideration that the works of its greatest master, Josiah 
 
 Wedgwood, in their finest and largest portion, lie hidden from public gaze 
 and understanding in private collections, and the earnest desire to advance 
 the culture of artistic taste, were the motives which led to the preparation of 
 this work. In these representations, culled from the finest assemblages of 
 Wedgwood’s fine-art productions, the connoisseur and student have all but 
 the very objects themselves before them; for Nature, through that most 
 beautiful of modern artistic processes, the autotype, has been the faultless 
 
 limner. 
 
 Should this volume meet with encouragement, its publishers will have 
 much pleasure in representing still further objects, from very many other 
 private collections, placed most generously at my disposal. Our great object 
 being not only to inform and please the connoisseur, but to incite, as well as 
 lead the artist and modeller towards those realms of artistic truth, originality, 
 and fancy, which lie open to all those, who despising to be mere copyists, have 
 the courage to labour and aspire. 
 
 For myself, I can truly say I have had the greatest delight in the 
 preparation of this work. I only regret that limited space has necessitated 
 brevity, both as regards Wedgwood’s memoir, and the descriptions of the 
 Illustrations ; yet I think some facts, hitherto unknown, will be found in both. 
 Simultaneously with this volume, will be issued a Catalogue of Wedgwood’s 
 manufactures, with illustrations, printed from the last edition published by 
 himself, and in the spring I hope to place before the public, “A Handbook for 
 
 b 
 
VI 
 
 Preface . 
 
 Collectors of Wedgwood-ware,” to be followed by a popular edition of the Life 
 of the great artist. For this I have collected much new material. Profiting 
 by the opinions of my many critics, and instructed by experience, I hope to 
 make it a biography alike suitable to the artist and to the general reader. 
 This may, or may not close my labours in the direction of the potter’s beautiful 
 art, though there is another artistic field on which I am preparing to enter, 
 and to which all my tastes and inclinations lead. 
 
 E. M. 
 
 December, 1872. 
 
 FLAXMAN. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PLATE 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Barberini or Portland Vase. Frontispiece 
 
 
 Tulk Collection. 
 
 Apotheosis of Homer. 
 
 
 Falcke Collection. 
 
 Apotheosis of Virgil. 
 
 
 Falcke Collection. v 
 
 Orestes and Pylades. 
 
 
 Bragg Collection. 
 
 Education of Bacchus. 
 
 
 Bragg Collection. 
 
 Achilles and Daughters of Lycomedes 
 
 
 Falcke Collection'.' 
 
 Judgment of Paris. 
 
 
 Mayer Collection. 
 
 Dancing Hours. 
 
 
 Sibson Collection. 
 
 Apollo and Muses, Bacchic Genius and Cupid . 
 
 
 Bragg Collection. 
 
 Five Muses. 
 
 
 Sibson Collection. 
 
 Apollo instructing youthful Bacchus 
 
 
 Bragg Collection. 
 
 Bacchanalian Triumph. 
 
 
 Mayer Collection. 
 
 Achilles delivered to Chiron by Thetis . 
 
 
 Bragg Collection. 
 
 Death of a Roman Warrior. 
 
 
 Sibson Collection. 
 
 Bacchanalian Sacrifice. * 
 
 
 Mayer Collection .' 
 
 Offering to Ceres. 
 
 
 Falcke Collectio 7 i. 
 
 Bacchanalian Boys. 
 
 
 S' ibson Collection. 
 
 Two Warriors and Horse. 
 
 
 Tulk Collection. 
 
 Peace preventing Mars from opening the Gates of Janus 
 
 Tulk Collection. 
 
 Bacchus and Two Bacchantes. 
 
 
 Tulk Collection. 
 
 Head of Minerva with zEgis and Helmet . 
 
 
 Mayer Collection. 
 
 Juno standing with a Sceptre. 
 
 
 Maprer Collection. 
 
 Jupiter with Thunderbolt and Sceptre 
 
 
 Mayer Collection. 
 
 Head of Bacchante . . . ... 
 
 
 Tulk Collection. 
 
 Genius of Flora leaning on an Altar . . . 
 
 
 Mayer Collection. 
 
 Ganymedes and Eagle . 
 
 
 Mayer Collection. 
 
 Piping Bacchus and Cupid. 
 
 
 Mayer Collection. 
 
 Cupid and Hymen. 
 
 
 Mayer Collection. 
 
 Three Bacchanalian Figures. Part of frieze . 
 
 
 Mayer Collection. 
 
Vlll 
 
 List of Illustrations. 
 
 PLATE 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 XX. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Calydonian Boar Hunt. 
 
 War of Jupiter and the Titans 
 
 Marriage Supper of Perseus and Andromeda 
 
 Psyche wounded and bound by Cupids 
 
 Feast of the Gods. 
 
 Friendship consoling Affliction . 
 
 Frame of Cameos. 
 
 Two Frames of Cameos. 
 
 Frame of Cameos. 
 
 Busts of Spenser, Washington, and Milton 
 
 Busts of Grotius and Voltaire 
 
 Vases, Bouquetiers, and Candelabra . 
 
 Tripod and Vases. 
 
 Vases .. 
 
 Vases, Pedestals, and Reverses 
 
 Escritoires. 
 
 Vases. 
 
 Vases. 
 
 Vases and Candelabrum . 
 
 Scent Jar and Vases ...... 
 
 Vases, Fruit Basket, and Honey Pot . 
 
 Bouquetiers. 
 
 Bouquetiers and Incense Burner . 
 
 Vases. 
 
 Vases. 
 
 Vases. 
 
 Vases. 
 
 Vases and Pedestal. 
 
 Vases. 
 
 Vase, Tripod and Lamp. 
 
 Tripod Lamp and Vases. 
 
 Bouquetier, Paint Box, and Flower Basket 
 
 Escritoires. 
 
 Vase, Candlesticks, Scent Jar, and Tea-pot 
 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Mayer Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Mayer Collection. 
 Sibson Collection. 
 Sibson Collection. 
 Falcke Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Falcke Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Mayer Collection. 
 Sibson Collection. 
 Mayer Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Mayer Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Sibson Collection. 
 Sibson Collection. 
 Mayer Collection. 
 Mayer Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Sibson Collection. 
 Falcke Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 Bragg Collection. 
 
 The plates in this work are reproduced by Autotype process by Messrs. Cundall ’ under licence 
 
 from the A utotype Compa 7 iy. 
 
FRONTISPIECE. 
 
 T)ORTLAND or Barberini Vase, as copied by Wedgwood. Black jasper; white 
 reliefs. Height, io inches; greatest diameter, 7^ inches. The example here 
 given was considered by Wedgwood his finest copy of the great original. As such it was 
 shown at the chief Continental courts, by his second son and Mr. Byerley, in the summer of 
 1791 ; and, on their return, it was kept as the show-vase at the rooms in Greek Street, 
 Soho, and afterwards in York Street, St. James’s Square. Here, upon the closing of the 
 London warehouse in 1829, it was sold to Mr. Tulk, the well-known friend of Flaxman, 
 and father of the present possessor. 
 
 The original vase is supposed to have been manufactured in the glass works of 
 Alexandria at their best period. Brought thence to Rome, it was used as a receptacle for 
 the ashes of the funeral pyre, as it was found enclosed in a sarcophagus of excellent work¬ 
 manship, and this in a sepulchral chamber beneath a mound of earth, called Monte del 
 Grano, about three miles from Rome, on the road to the ancient Tusculum. The discovery 
 was made between the years 1623 and 1644, during the pontificate of Urban VIII. 
 (Barberini). An inscription on the sarcophagus, which was otherwise covered with fine 
 bas-reliefs, showed it to have been dedicated to the memory of the Emperor Alexander 
 Severus, and his mother, Julia Mamaea, both of whom were killed, in the year 235, during a 
 revolt in Germany. The vase, in height 10 inches, was deposited in the library of the 
 Barberini family, and the sarcophagus in the Museum of the Capitol. The material of 
 which the former is composed was, by Montfau^on and others, conjectured to be a precious 
 stone, but Wedgwood’s examination proved it to be formed of glass ; the ground being a 
 dark blue, so nearly approaching black, as to appear to be of that colour, except when held 
 in a strong light. The white bas-reliefs are of glass or paste, the material having been 
 fused on in a mass, and then cut out by the skill and patience of the gem engraver. The 
 subjects of these bas-reliefs, as also the age and place of production of the vase, are points 
 so wholly unknown as to be still open to conjecture and criticism. With respect to the 
 first, critics have differed. They have been generally considered to bear reference to 
 the Eleusinian mysteries ; but one of the most learned critics of our own day, whose works 
 on Gems are known to every artist, scholar, and man of taste, considers that one of the 
 groups represents Peleus approaching Thetis. At best the vase must ever remain what 
 Erasmus Darwin termed it, “ Portland’s mystic urn.” Wedgwood valued the copy repre¬ 
 sented at ^200.— Tulk Collection. 
 
PRIAM BEGGING THE BODY OF HIS SON HECTOR. 
 
 WEDGWOOD AND HIS WORKS. 
 
 I N their higher forms the productions of the arts like the predictions and 
 discoveries of science have, in all ages, been in advance of prevalent cul¬ 
 ture. By the few—men endowed by nature or enriched by education and travel— 
 such works were appreciated and understood; but, till the processes of civilisa¬ 
 tion had had long effect, it was scarcely possible, except in rare cases of great 
 natural taste, that ordinary minds could derive from what was beautiful in form 
 and chaste in decoration, other than a mere momentary pleasure of sight, if even 
 so much as that. Of the purification of ideas, the exaltation of thought, the new 
 and exquisite conceptions involved in ideal interpretations of nature there was 
 not even a suggestion, and thus artistic productions of the highest class have 
 been chiefly attractive to the eclectic few. When, from any cause, the patronage 
 of that few ceased the art either died out or was so little exercised as to speedily 
 fall into degeneracy and decay. Yet, where the beautiful objects were preserved, 
 even though partially, the day of revival and renewed appreciation came, most 
 probably in increased degree, for the acquired mental habitudes impress them¬ 
 selves on man’s organisation with sufficient force and permanence to occasion 
 their transmission to the offspring as inborn tendencies to similar tastes and 
 similar modes of thought. And thus whilst the mere technical and productive 
 
 B 
 
9 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 o 
 
 knowledge of art cannot necessarily descend from one generation to another, an 
 increased aptitude, either for art generally or some particular branch of it, may 
 be inherited, and the acquired habitudes produced by the intellectual culture 
 of a generation or an age become a second nature to those who follow. 
 
 A remarkable case of this kind is that of Wedgwood’s ornamental produc¬ 
 tions. They were, at the time of their appearance, so admired and sought for, 
 chiefly by the aristocratic class, that this patronage passed into a fashion. It 
 lasted but little beyond the generation which witnessed the beginning and per¬ 
 fection of these marvels of the potter’s art; for taste and culture were not, as yet, 
 sufficiently advanced and general for their merits to be understood except by 
 the esoteric few; and social, economical and political causes all soon combined 
 to bring about their disuse and comparative oblivion. Their manufacture 
 gradually declined if it did not wholly cease ; and even, in such specimens of it 
 as survived, inferiority became so marked, as to repel those who recollected the 
 productions of earlier years. These, which were already classic objects, were 
 enshrined in the collections and cabinets of the majority of their first purchasers, 
 and of a few who, endowed with taste, preserved what they had become 
 possessed of or collected. But this was the exception rather than the rule. 
 Unfortunately with works of fine art as with too many other things, the neglect 
 of fashion tends to carelessness and destruction, and there is reason to fear 
 that many of Wedgwood’s finest works, neither cared for nor understood, 
 perished or were lost sight of, during the earlier portion of the present 
 century; especially in the case of the intaglios, cameos, medallions and smaller 
 busts and plaques. But some classes of subjects had been produced in large 
 numbers, and their residue is fortunately still considerable. Wedgwood sent 
 many of his finest works to foreign countries; and of recent years inquiries 
 and research in Italy, Russia and Holland, have added many most choice and 
 beautiful objects to our various collections. The specimens from Holland have 
 in especial been carefully preserved. 
 
 The wider and more general culture of the last forty years, increased 
 facilities for continental travel, training in art schools, international exhibitions, 
 the institution of art museums, and the illustration of newspapers and books 
 have together brought public taste to its present improved condition. Under the 
 influence of this higher and more permanently receptive state of culture, appre- 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 3 
 
 ciation of the works of Wedgwood has had complete revival. Their admirers, no 
 longer a dilettante few, are to be found in the utmost variety of social position. 
 Wherever there is a due amount of cultivation combined with taste, they are 
 admired and sought for, not so much for the reason that they are beautiful or 
 national, as that they exemplify many of the best principles of pure and ideal art. 
 Some account of the life of the great potter, with the analysis of the several Cata¬ 
 logues of these beautiful works, which are here attempted, may in a measure serve 
 to show the progressive steps by which perfection was reached, and give aid in 
 apportioning many of the subjects to their respective modellers and artists. 
 The photographic illustrations appended will prove that no vain boast was 
 made when Wedgwood wrote to his friend just a hundred years ago, “ These 
 things want only time and scarcity to make them worth anything.” The self 
 assertion of genius is not always realized ; and this one example will effect its 
 highest purpose should it tend to the expression and realization of others 
 which may bear still greater and more permanent connexion with originality of 
 artistic design and perfection of detail and workmanship. 
 
 The English during all the stages of their national progress have shown 
 undoubted aptitude for the arts ; especially those of architecture and sculpture. 
 Thousands of documents which would have thrown light upon the subject 
 perished at the Reformation; but those preserved convincingly prove that 
 as regards the constructive and decorative arts, England has owed more to 
 native than to foreign talent. Continental ecclesiastics in some cases sug¬ 
 gested and drew the plan of an abbey or a great cathedral. Monks who had 
 learned somewhat of geometry and mechanics in the schools of Rome and 
 Lombardy, at times directed the works. When an emergency occurred or 
 structural difficulties were more than usual, a body of travelling masons would 
 be summoned and remain till the difficulties were overcome. Occasionally 
 figures in marble or stone—a tomb or an altar, were the work of Italian 
 sculptors. All else was native to the soil ; and the exquisite tracery, the 
 donation, the groining, the angelic winged heads, the grotesque masks and 
 faces which still enrich our great cathedrals, were the work of sculptors and 
 masons bearing English names. Not a few of our cathedrals were begun and 
 finished by English prelates. Wells Cathedral, which with the exception of 
 two of its tombs, those of Edward the Confessor and Henry III., is essentially 
 
4 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 English in its architecture and sculptures, was finished in 1242, during the 
 episcopacy of Joceline Troteman, an Englishman, and two years after the birth 
 of Cimabue, the restorer of painting in Italy. During the long and prosperous 
 reign of Edward III. architecture, sculpture and painting greatly flourished. 
 Magnificent buildings were raised and others were improved and adorned. St. 
 Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster, was built in this reign and the sculptors and 
 painters, whose names are preserved, were Englishmen. The tombs and 
 monuments of that and the next period were equally indebted for their beauty 
 to native talent. Nothing of a like kind done in Italy at that date excels 
 the monument of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, raised in 1439. Of 
 this the mason was Thomas Essex, the sculptor and founder, William Austin, 
 of London. The Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey, built by Henry VII. to 
 receive his tomb, contained within and without three thousand statues. 
 Torrigiano, an Italian artist, was employed upon the tomb ; but he had no 
 concern with the building or the statues with which it was embellished. 
 They were native productions, for the artists, painters, sculptors, founders bore 
 English names, and the figures still remaining are remarkable for their natural 
 simplicity and the grandeur of character and drapery. Innumerable similar 
 instances may still be seen in our cathedrals, churches, colleges and even civic 
 buildings, of the great employment and estimation of the arts, especially sculp¬ 
 ture, in this kingdom prior to the Reformation. In no period has artistic ability 
 been wanting in the people but only circumstances favourable to its culture 
 and development. The wrecks which still remain from the prodigious 
 destructions which succeeded each other from the reign of Henry VIII. to that 
 of Charles II. prove, says Flaxman in his lectures, “that from the time Nicolo 
 and John Pisano restored sculpture in Italy soon after the year 1200, and 
 before the birth of Cimabue, the Italian restorer of painting, to the reign of 
 Henry VII. we have works of sculpture done in England, in some cases 
 possibly by English artists, in other and most important instances, certainly 
 by Englishmen whose names are on record, and whose works may be compared 
 with those of the best Italian artists of the same times.” 
 
 It must not be supposed that the arts of architecture and sculpture stand 
 alone in this estimate. In the first period, metal work, artistic designs in 
 stained glass and wood-carvings were imported from Italy and the Netherlands ; 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 5 
 
 but, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, England, in these particulars 
 could rely on native talent. In pottery, so far as it was yet applied to flat 
 surfaces, she held her own from the beginning. The decorations in relief on 
 the Norman pitchers and other vessels, if rude, often betokened originality 
 and taste ; and after the commingling of the races and two centuries of training 
 in the monastic pot-works, the beauty of English tile-work and its peculiar 
 adaptation to the necessities of the Gothic style, became extraordinary. 
 While the potters of the valley of the Po, true to the style of the Renaissance, 
 in its airy lightness, its conventional forms, its softer and more subdued tones 
 of colour, were decorating the outer facades and interiors of churches as well as 
 campaniles and walls of houses with tiling and works in terra cotta of unsur¬ 
 passed grace and beauty, the English, culminating in their skill as tile-wrights, 
 covered the floors of cathedral, church and abbey with pavements which, whether 
 considered in relation to richness of colour, keeping of effect, or durability, are 
 miracles of art. The shadows of the mightiest and most majestic groined roofs, 
 recessed arches, pillars and long descending aisles were, in a measure, chased 
 away by the splendid hues on which they fell. Knights in armour, heraldic 
 bearings and saintly emblems, oftenest depicted in the finest and richest yellow 
 tinted clays, made in certain lights these floors seem as though paved with gold ; 
 and this was markedly the case in the splendid abbeys of Chertsey and West¬ 
 minster. Other colours were likewise employed; much black, less brown and 
 white, and a little dark blue; these in turn often increasing and enriching the 
 many hues of the stained windows which towered above. Occasionally, as in 
 more recessed places, tile-work in relief was employed; its designs, such as 
 plants and leaves conventionally treated, were of extreme beauty; but these tiles 
 were not popular on account of their tendency to harbour dirt. Each great 
 abbey and monastery had its tile-factory; and, from the results preserved to us, 
 we may presume that its direction was not only able, but embodied the best 
 manipulative skill and the best chemical and artistic knowledge of the time. 
 Majolica ware was the outgrowth of tile-work; and in turn improved and beau¬ 
 tified that which, in an artistic light, it far transcended. Though the culinary and 
 domestic usages of the Middle Ages called for little of the potter’s art, except 
 pipkins, pitchers and crocks, and with these each district was, generally speaking, 
 supplied by its local handicraftsmen, the monastic tile-wrights seem at times 
 
 c 
 
6 
 
 Wedgzvood and his Works. 
 
 <_> 
 
 to have varied their labours by making grotesque pottery, by decorating 
 pitchers and dishes with gaudy reliefs, and by the manufacture of small figures, 
 chiefly religious caricatures, such as obese friars and dishevelled nuns. 
 These were usually formed in coloured clays, or in white clay, which they 
 painted. This class of figures is frequently mentioned in the Wills and 
 Inventories of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and by being thus made 
 objects of testamentary bequeathment, they were undoubtedly highly 
 prized. The fragments of such various vessels and figures have been usually 
 found on the sites or in the neighbourhood of religious houses, as instanced in 
 the abbeys of Fountain’s and Bury St. Edmund’s and the priory of Lewes. But 
 no perfect figures have come down to our time ; not even those of a far more 
 artistic and in some- cases spiritual character; though rarely found fragments 
 have given proof that such had been modelled in clay. For all objects of this 
 character perished in the hundred and thirty years which lay between the 
 Reformation and Restoration ; a period in which ignorance and fanaticism 
 combined, despoiled the whole land of the fruits of centuries of intelligent 
 labour and skill. For as Furitanism gathered strength, art died ; and if men 
 were paid so much a day to destroy the finest sculptures and paintings in 
 cathedrals and churches it was not likely that more domestic objects would be 
 spared ; in fact, their beauty and grace, whether the result of native or foreign 
 talent, made destruction more certain. And these things took place in an age 
 when the culture of the true principles of art first became possible. The 
 discovery of the art of printing was bearing fruit, anatomy and mathematics 
 were studied and linear perspective had been in a manner perfected. Could 
 the reforms necessary to political and personal liberty and spiritual freedom have 
 been effected without iconoclastic violence and wanton destruction more indi¬ 
 cative of a nation of savages than civilized men, could the abbeys and their 
 magnificent libraries have been preserved and put to worthy use, could all which 
 was ornamental in the land have been slowly and intelligently severed from an 
 association with religious worship, improvements in the decorative arts might 
 have been anticipated by at least two centuries. The reign of Elizabeth and 
 the age of Shakespeare might have added to their roll of immortal names those 
 of great painters, sculptors and potters. English works in terra cotta might 
 have rivalled those of Lombardy ; and familiarity with the porcelain of the 
 
7 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 East, which during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I. was brought 
 into this country in sufficient quantities to serve some of the purposes of 
 banquets and refections, would have probably stimulated and led to search for 
 the materials of which it was made. Some fine specimens of the domestic 
 architecture of the reigns of James I. and Charles I. are still extant, but the 
 times were not favourable to any true revival of the decorative arts. The civil 
 and religious liberties of the nation were at stake, and till these were vindicated 
 and secured there existed neither the leisure nor the wealth so necessary to the 
 well-being of the arts. Charles I. had the tastes of a scholar and an artist, 
 and he gathered together a gallery of pictures worthy of a king; but his 
 lack of moral principle and his tyrannous political creed soon overshadowed 
 the good effects which, in happier times, might have arisen from his patronage 
 of painting and sculpture. Yet native talent was not absent, though it existed 
 under shadow, for some monumental figures of great merit were executed 
 during his reign. Through the period of the civil wars and of the Common¬ 
 wealth religious fanaticism prevailed, and of this the sole object was to destroy 
 rather than create ; and with the exception of a few portraits and some admirable 
 miniatures by a native painter named Oliver, none of the arts which connect 
 themselves with grace and refinement could be said to have had an existence. 
 But the Restoration came, the fanatic spirit was rendered comparatively 
 powerless, and a new and extraordinary era was begun ; an era which con¬ 
 necting, for the first time in the ages of the world, the principles of art with 
 those of utility, was to prove in a marked degree the force, originality and 
 prolificness of native talent. 
 
 Very early in the history of this country the little hamlets into which, for 
 the most part, the great territorial manors were divided, took their names from 
 some accident of situation, some characteristic of climate and production, or 
 the personal designation of those whose dwellings they were. Thus, when the 
 Lyme, the great woodland of Cheshire and north-western Staffordshire, 
 fell beneath the axe, and little aggregations of cottages were formed here and 
 there on the bleak but picturesque waste, there, as elsewhere, each became 
 known by some characteristic of situation, or by the name of its settlers. 
 Burslem was so named from its situation in the woodlands; and the adjacent 
 manor of Tunstall, embraced amongst other hamlets, that of Wedgwood. It 
 
8 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 was a very small place, indeed ; its area covering scarcely five hundred acres. 
 It took its name, as so many other places in the district, from the great woods ; 
 silve? infinite? continue ?—is Camden’s phrase. The name was originally spelt 
 Weggewode, the Anglo-Saxon for a wayside wood. Thomas de Weggewode 
 was headborough of his hamlet in 1370, and his race being sturdy and indus¬ 
 trious, spread themselves north, and settling in the beautiful country around 
 Leek, acquired considerable property by marriage; raising thereby their 
 position from freeholders to that of gentlemen. Of these, one Richard 
 Wedgwood, of Mole, had a son named Gilbert, who, born in 1588, married one 
 of the two daughters and coheiresses of Thomas Burslem, a gentleman whose 
 ancestors had resided at Dale Hall, in Burslem, in good repute for many 
 generations. The young couple settled in Burslem in about 1612, on some 
 portion of the ancestral property; though not in the ancient hall or manor 
 house, which being probably dilapidated, was pulled down a few years later. 
 Six or more children sprang from this marriage ; and the property being chiefly 
 in land, which descended to the heir, the patrimony of the rest could have been 
 but small. It is therefore probable that two of the sons took up the trade of 
 potters. Of this there is certainty in the next generation ; for four if not five 
 sons of these two brothers became eventually potters of much skill; being 
 settled here and there about the little township of Burslem, on property which 
 for the most part had belonged to their grandmother’s estate. Their births 
 ranged from 1654 to 1666. If, therefore, two or more of them became masters 
 for themselves in early life, it was at a period when the trade was instinct with 
 vitality, and the demand for improved goods was increasing every day. Indeed, 
 the profits of this trade lured men from other vocations ; for one of these 
 grandsons of Gilbert Wedgwood seems to have studied medicine and even to 
 have practised surgery, for he was known as Dr. Thomas Wedgwood ; but the 
 profits of the healing craft were but small in those days, especially in little 
 country villages, and he eventually gave up surgery for pot-making. Yet his 
 training proved of the utmost service—for he became renowned as a skilful 
 chemist; and by his various improvements, especially in glazes, and by being 
 among the first of the masters to employ modellers, he greatly aided in the 
 general improvements then taking place. 
 
 Another Thomas Wedgwood, of this third generation, settled on a part of 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 9 
 
 the ancestral property surrounding the parish church, then a most primitive 
 place, situated amidst fields and strips of unenclosed moorland. Here he built 
 if not his cottage, the few sheds and ovens necessary to his trade. The glebe- 
 land fields lay opposite the door, a turfy hilly lane sloped up into the town, a 
 little public-house stood midway, and in this the cratemen chaffered with the 
 potter for his wares, whilst their panniered asses grazed up and down. This 
 Thomas Wedgwood, the first settler in the churchyard works and the grand¬ 
 father of Josiah Wedgwood, made black and mottled ware, and employing six 
 men and four boys, derived a profit of about sixteen shillings a week from his 
 business. But he had no rent to pay, taxes were few, living very cheap, for 
 nearly every master-potter in the position of Thomas Wedgwood, had a cow 
 and sheep grazing on the adjacent waste, a pig in the sty, and a croft or 
 two full of rye and barley, bread being generally made at that time of the 
 former. He married while young and had a large family. Of this his eldest 
 son Thomas married while still younger, namely, at the age of twenty, Mary 
 Stringer, daughter of a minister ejected from the Church of England, under 
 the Act of Uniformity passed soon after the Restoration. She appears from 
 the evidence of her husband’s will to have possessed some little property, for 
 it was secured to her as a marriage portion; and she was fairly educated, for 
 her signature in 1744 to her son’s indentures was far better than was that of 
 many a titled lady of those days. The young couple settled for a time in the 
 centre of the little town of Burslem ; the husband carrying on a pot-work of his 
 own, and making a higher style of goods than his father did; namely, white 
 and moulded ware. A veiy numerous family grew rapidly around him ; many 
 of his elder children being older than his younger brothers and sisters. The 
 date of the death of the elder Thomas Wedgwood is uncertain ; beyond the 
 fact that it occurred some time between 1715 and 1730. Soon after it took place 
 his heir and successor, Thomas Wedgwood, removed to the Churchyard 
 Works, and here it was that on July 7, 1730, his thirteenth and last child was 
 born, Josiah Wedgwood, the most celebrated of English potters. 
 
 When Dr. Plot made his visit into Staffordshire many years previous, it is 
 said, to 1786, at which date he published his “ Natural History” of that county, 
 it is not likely that the information he gathered in a brief and cursory visit 
 approached anything like the real facts. We all know that history of every 
 
 D 
 
IO 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 kind, either omits or overcolours much which appertains to veritable fact; and 
 we now well know that a good deal lay behind, when he was told that the chief 
 manufacture of Burslem and its neighbourhood lay in butter-pots, and when 
 he was permitted to see some of the coarser processes, as those of mixing, 
 slapping, and banging clay, the throwing of rude vessels, and the painting of 
 them with gaudy colours derived from ochre, red lead, and clay. These were 
 no more than the degenerate and fast dying-out processes of the artistic tile- 
 wrights of the Middle Ages. From time immemorial the potters had been a 
 secretive race; carefully concealing from their rivals in the trade their 
 respective processes, and forbidding the entry of all strangers into their works. 
 A good deal, therefore, was at the rear of the little Plot has recorded. If even 
 it was smoky in its hue, one kind or more of white ware was made, coloured 
 reliefs were applied, and foliation about the spouts and handles of jugs and 
 cups was not uncommon. There was progress ; and as the seventeenth century 
 drew to a close, its rapidity was marked in every department of the craft. 
 The increasing use of tea and coffee called for such necessary vessels as cups, 
 saucers and teapots. A gradual improvement in the style of living and in 
 cookery, and an increase and greater variety of edibles brought to table, as 
 in the case of vegetables and foreign fruits, made continuous demand upon the 
 potter’s skill. It was bravely met, and energy and industry were to be seen 
 everywhere. One potter discovered that salt made an excellent and far 
 superior glaze to lead ore ; another mixed the native clays and produced a rude 
 stone-ware. In 1690 some German potters of the name of Elers, lured by the 
 fame of the ductility and variety of the clays of Staffordshire, settled them¬ 
 selves in a secluded farm-house, near Burslem, and there with as much secresy 
 as vigilance and precaution could ensure, used with improved methods the 
 delicate red clay found in the neighbourhood. With this they made all kinds 
 of pretty vessels for the tea-table ; such as teapots, piggins for milk, and cups 
 for honey and sugar. The articles were of a fine colour, and usually embossed 
 with a small spray of the tea or other tropical plant. They also by the addition 
 of manganese, produced a fine black ware from the same clay. They improved 
 the salt glaze by employing a superior method, and they used the lathe ; but, in 
 spite of all their precautions, their trade secrets were stolen from them by 
 cunning workmen ; and their lives were made so miserable by the incessant 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 11 
 
 curiosity and ill-will of their neighbours, that they gave up their works and 
 left Staffordshire. But the trade was thriving, and the native potters were full 
 of energy and resources. They introduced the whiter clays of Devonshire and 
 Cornwall, first as a dip for their wares, next as ingredients in the body. They 
 discovered the use of calcined flints; and by combining flint with marl and 
 clay, they produced a sort of cream-colour stoneware. Improvements in form 
 and ornamentation kept pace with the rest. Moulds, at first chiefly made of 
 metal, were introduced, and much fancy was displayed in forming basket-work, 
 shell-work, corn and other patterns. The ornaments on some specimens were 
 made by pressing bits of clay into moulds, and these after being well smoothed 
 on the surface and edges, were extracted and fixed on the sides of the vessel 
 by slip. Some of these moulds were of brass, others of clay. In some 
 instances these ornaments were coloured blue by dusting them with dry smalts 
 or zaffre. Figures were applied in relief, some being white, others black; and 
 thus originated the methods of imitating cameos, medallions and bas-reliefs. 
 Various other kinds of ornamental wares were made in imitation of tortoise¬ 
 shell, agate, and leaves of various shades of green, with streaks such as 
 we see on melons and other fruits. The markings and colours of a few 
 vegetables, such as cauliflowers, were also copied. 
 
 Little is known, perhaps there was little worth preserving, of the 
 childhood of Josiah Wedgwood. He came of a worthy English stock, which 
 had been accustomed, for some centuries at least, to all the comfort and 
 independence then to be secured in the simple life of freeholders. For two 
 generations, if not three, the craft he was destined to pursue had been followed 
 with skill, especially by his father; and inheriting the result of this in an 
 increased degree, in him it culminated in genius. He was as much born 
 a potter as Reynolds a painter and Flaxman a sculptor. His home was one 
 of simple plenty and warmth. On Sunday his father sat in the best pew in the 
 adjacent parish church, of which he was churchwarden ; and when need of any 
 kind arose it could be met by the savings of labour, or from the resources 
 arising from the possession of houses, land and stock. It must have been 
 moreover a cheerful home, for it was crowded with merry childhood ; and 
 numberless relations were spread over the adjacent village and its hamlets in 
 patriarchal fashion. After a probation in the nearest dame-school, he accom- 
 
12 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 panied his brothers and sisters a daily journey of four miles, there and back, 
 across the fields, to Newcastle; where, in a small tenement built on a bank by 
 the parish churchyard and adjacent to the Unitarian chapel, one John or 
 Thomas Blount kept school. He was a pedagogue of fame and a worthy man ; 
 his scholars being noted for writing a good bold hand and for ciphering well. 
 The schoolhouse remains; though what was the schoolroom is now divided 
 into two by a partition wall. The ancient, much worn brick floor, the quaint 
 fireplace in a corner, the small square casemented window looking forth on to 
 the churchyard wall, the little dreary strip of playground, and sideways to the 
 chapel, are yet much in the same state as when some hundred and thirty-four 
 years ago the children of Thomas Wedgwood, the Burslem potter, went to and 
 fro. In the chapel it is not unlikely their maternal grandfather Stringer had 
 preached, as he had been a dissenter; and towards the close of the reign of 
 Charles II. and early in that of James II. in spite of the severity of the Acts 
 passed against Nonconformists, chapels in various districts of the north-western 
 counties were built for public worship by the Unitarians. At the time of Josiah 
 Wedgwood’s apprenticeship, or a little subsequently, his future brother-in- 
 law, the Rev. William Willet preached here, and so continued to do till within 
 a short time of his death in 1778. He was a man possessed of great natural 
 taste for science, particularly optics; and to his honour it must be remembered 
 that he was the first to instil in the illustrious Priestley a love of experiment 
 and abstract study. There was considerable difference in their years; but 
 Priestley, whilst a very young man, teaching and preaching at Nantwich in 
 Cheshire, often spent a day at Newcastle with his scientific friend, and there com¬ 
 muned with him in relation to those abstract studies which both loved so well. 
 
 In June 1739 Josiah Wedgwood lost his father, who died after a very 
 brief illness. On his deathbed the latter made his will, leaving by it to his 
 eldest son Thomas, also a potter, and then twenty-three years of age, the 
 possession of his estates. His wife was secured in her marriage settlement 
 with gift of all household goods; and on the estate was laid the support of his 
 six youngest children, who also, on coming of age, were each to receive a 
 legacy of £20. 
 
 After this untimely death of his father Josiah Wedgwood did not remain 
 long at school; if even he went again. In those days apprenticeship began 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 i3 
 
 early and the acquirement of reading and writing was considered education 
 sufficient for boys who were to be engaged in trade; and, in this particular one 
 of a potter, it was especially thought necessary that training should begin 
 early, in order that those following it should acquire dexterity of hand in 
 throwing, and accuracy of eye and judgment in relation to form. He was 
 therefore when about ten or eleven years of age put to work in the sheds 
 adjacent to his home, and here one John Fletcher, an old workman who died 
 in 1816, remembered making balls for Richard and Josiah Wedgwood, who sat 
 each at a throwing bench in the two corners of a small room; throwing being 
 the art of forming vessels upon the potter’s wheel from balls of clay previously 
 weighed. The elder brother Thomas Wedgwood made, as it seems, much 
 ordinary white ware for exportation ; and such would necessarily include circular 
 vessels of many kinds. 
 
 But the small-pox broke out in the adjacent village, and reaching the 
 Churchyard Works laid prostrate several of Mary Wedgwood’s younger 
 children. Josiah took the disease in its worst form and long lay very ill. At 
 length, slowly recovering, except for a certain lameness and weakness in his 
 right knee, he was on the nth day of November, 1744, placed apprentice for 
 five years to his brother Thomas Wedgwood, who still carried on the Church¬ 
 yard Works, though probably residing in the adjacent village, as he was at this 
 date married. The usual term of apprenticeship being seven years, we may 
 reasonably conclude that prior initiation and service had been taken into 
 consideration in this abridgment. Of the five years which followed we know 
 little beyond the fact, that the young potter was soon compelled by the painful 
 state of his knee to give up his place on the thrower’s bench and restrict his 
 work to those branches which required less bodily action. He was thus to be 
 seen for weeks together, seated with his leg raised upon a rest, whilst he 
 modelled, moulded, made designs, and compounded bodies and glazes ; his am¬ 
 bition being, as his knowledge and years increased, to improve the excellence, 
 and consequently sale of the wares produced in his brother’s works. But Thomas 
 Wedgwood was an easy, indolent, commonplace man, of tolerable estate and 
 further considerable expectancies ; one of those ordinary men who take life as 
 it is and leave the world neither better nor worse than they found it. 
 
 As already said, the wife of Gilbert Wedgwood who settled in Burslem 
 
 E 
 
14 Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 about 1612, had an only sister, a co-heiress like herself. This lady married 
 a gentleman of the name of Colclough and settled with him in a pleasant 
 country-house forming part of her inheritance, known as the Overhouse, 
 Burslem. It was in those days surrounded by fields, gardens and homestead ; 
 but Catherine Colclough’s only child and heir died whilst young, and thus her 
 own and her husband’s property descended to the eldest of those four or five 
 brothers and cousins who first, as with any certainty we know, took up the 
 trade of potters. This John Wedgwood, for such was his name, settled at the 
 Overhouse and made his pot-work on ground adjacent. A puzzle jug of his 
 manufacture, with his name and the date 1691 is to be seen in the Museum 
 of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street. He died in 1705, leaving an only 
 daughter named Catherine. She married, whilst young, a cousin named 
 Richard Wedgwood ; but he died at an early date, as did also the only 
 offspring of the marriage, a son, whilst still a minor. Catherine Wedgwood 
 was twice again a wife and widow, and deriving property from both husbands, 
 who had been gentlemen of good estate, she was, whilst Josiah Wedgwood 
 was passing through his apprenticeship and afterwards, settled at the Over¬ 
 house in good style, keeping her man-servant and her two maids ; and by what 
 we can gather from her will, taking a most kindly interest in the wellbeing of 
 the widow and children at the Churchyard Works. To this lady’s property, 
 Thomas Wedgwood, the eldest brother of Josiah was heir. 
 
 For some time after his apprenticeship was at an end, Josiah appears to 
 have continued with his brother. But finding constant opposition to his 
 plans for improving the character of the goods produced, and enlarging the 
 business, he entered into an engagement with one John Harrison, a tradesman 
 of Newcastle, who had invested money in a pot-work at Cliff Bank, near 
 Stoke, belonging to a potter named Thomas Alders. As the latter made 
 only the commonest goods, and was no great master of his craft, they took, with 
 a view to improving their business, young Wedgwood as partner and manager. 
 This happened in 1751 or early in 1752, and soon a marked improvement was 
 seen. .Sales and consequently profits increased ; but unmindful of their young 
 partners labours, and his right to share in the benefits arising therefrom, they 
 displayed a most offensive greed, with the ultimate result that he threw up 
 his partnership, at the expiration of less than two years. He was not long 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 i5 
 
 idle, for Thomas Whieldon, a very able and worthy man, and one of the first 
 potters of his time, wanted active assistance, and with him young Wedgwood 
 entered into partnership. Whieldon had built up his business like many 
 others, on small beginnings. His work was chiefly of an ornamental character. 
 He made snuff-boxes, knife-handles, toys and chimney ornaments, black-glazed 
 tea and coffee pots, candlesticks, pickle-leaves, and tortoiseshell and melon 
 table-plates with ornamented and scalloped edges. He was amongst the first 
 of those who employed modellers ; and several youths who afterwards acquired 
 fame in the trade were, at this date, his apprentices. One of the number 
 was Josiah Spode. 
 
 Young Wedgwood’s local fame must have been, even at this early date, 
 considerable, for upon entering upon this partnership with Whieldon, one of 
 their agreements was to the effect that he should practise for their joint benefit 
 such secret processes as suggestiveness and experiment had already made his ; 
 this without any necessity of revealing to others what they were. With a 
 view to perfecting many of his designs, he spent the first six months of his 
 partnership in preparing models, moulds, and other necessary things; his only 
 assistant being a young man who had made some progress in the art of 
 modelling. The first result of this laborious preparation was a new kind of 
 green ware, exquisitely moulded in imitation of leaves, of various sizes, and 
 often twigged. Its rarest speciality was its glaze; which for fineness, brilliancy 
 and colour as yet had never been approached. To a year or two later must be 
 referred his first conception of his after great work, the cameos ; and the 
 necessity connected therewith of experimentalising for one or more white 
 bodies in which to model reliefs on coloured grounds. Such body would need 
 ductility in modelling, sharpness of outline when fired, and fineness of colour; 
 and for attaining these effects, his experiments seem to have begun somewhere 
 about 1755, as in writing to Bentley in 1775, in reference to his difficulties 
 with the jasper body, he remarked that it was time perfection was attained, as 
 his experiments for this body had then been in hand twenty years. Till he 
 entered into business for himself, there is no reason to think that Wedgwood 
 made trial pieces for cameos—distinctly as such—but that he applied reliefs to 
 some of Whieldon's smaller and choicer goods there is no matter for doubt. 
 In the varied collection of Mr. Graham, at Cranford, are two small drinking 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 16 
 
 mugs and a teapot, which are undoubtedly Whieldon-Wedgwood. The latter, 
 which is too angular and flat to be beautiful, is of a very pale grey or grey 
 green colour, as is also one of the mugs. Both are highly glazed. The other 
 mug is of a fine wood brown. Between the angles of the teapot are small 
 leaves in white upon a stem of like colour; while round the upper portions 
 of the mugs is a fine and exquisite border in a creamy white and highly 
 glazed body. Wedgwood must have derived this from some good source; 
 it being a Renaissance interpretation of the helix ornament, as seen on the 
 early Greek vases. In the middle, the border separates, and there is delicately 
 poised on the connecting link or tendril, a minute but elegant vase, of a form 
 distinctly cinquecento. Nothing of Whieldon’s ornamental work has this 
 character. It was pretty, and often delicate, but it bore no relation, even in a 
 rudimentary form, to fine art. 
 
 While thus passing through his two partnerships, young Wedgwood resided 
 at Stoke, in the family of Mr. Daniel Mayer, a substantial draper and mercer 
 of that place, who, with his family, occupied a pleasant garden-house in one of 
 the best parts of the town. But, unfortunately, about the middle period of his 
 Whieldon partnership, he hurt his already injured knee, and for many weeks 
 he was laid by with this, and a prostrating illness which followed. Slowly 
 recovering, though long confined to his room, he turned the lengthened 
 probation to good, by the improvement of his deficient education. He had 
 already striven to this end by incessant diligence, carried often far into the 
 night. But he had now the assistance of an educated friend in his brother-in- 
 law, the Rev. W. Willet, who aided him in his study of optics, geometry, and 
 chemistry ; and lent him the best translations then extant of classical authors. 
 Wedgwood never made even the attempt to study the Latin language; though 
 to the reading and acquirements of this period may be traced his first 
 knowledge of classic art, and his conception, that in connexion therewith lay a 
 boundless field for design and imitation. Yet, it was to mineralogy and 
 chemistry that his tastes at that date turned. He ultimately became in some 
 branches as profound a chemist as he was a great potter; for he knew full well, 
 till he could invent new vehicles, through which to represent his manifold 
 conceptions of grace and beauty, he stood as powerless as a painter without 
 canvas and colour, or a sculptor without marble. He therefore, to improve and 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 17 
 
 ensure his knowledge in the art, copied out with his own hand many of the 
 best chemical works of the time; and these copies are still extant in Scotland. 
 
 While his convalescence progressed, he went much to and fro to the 
 Bank House, Newcastle, the residence of his brother-in-law, Willet, and here 
 it was he first saw Priestley, who then resided at Nantwich. A love of science, 
 and kindred opinions in religion and politics, made them eventually life-long 
 friends ; and a few years later, when Wedgwood had brought his mortar 
 material to perfection, he supplied gratis, the illustrious philosopher with all 
 those chemical vessels necessary to his varied experiments ; Priestley generally 
 sending their outline, as to form, in his letters, where they are still to be seen ; 
 an interesting memorial of the scientific tastes, as also of the friendship of two 
 illustrious Englishmen. To this illness of Wedgwood, whilst at Stoke, may 
 be probably referred his first acquaintance with Erasmus Darwin, the poet and 
 physician of Lichfield. 
 
 So soon as he had gained sufficient strength, Wedgwood returned to his 
 labours at Fenton, and continued there till the close of the year 1758 or the 
 beginning of 1759. The agreement entered into with Whieldon had reached 
 its limit, and was not renewed. Whieldon was a simple, unostentatious, 
 prudent man. He had already amassed a considerable fortune by his ordinary 
 trade, and he appears to have been unwilling to enter into the speculations of 
 his young and sanguine partner. If the latter had in any way opened to him 
 his visions as to the production of works really worthy of being termed fine art , 
 it is not unlikely that the former trembled as to his future solvency; so utterly 
 impossible is it for ordinary minds to conceive or recognize those daring and 
 impulsive flights of genius by which great arts or sciences are inaugurated, or 
 great reforms effected. 
 
 There exists some difficulty as to the precise date at which Josiah Wedg¬ 
 wood commenced business for himself at Burslem. Further research may 
 settle the question ; though the document relating to the hire of the Ivy-house 
 and its small pot-work seems now irrecoverably lost. It was in existence so 
 recently as 1826. Before, however, leaving Stoke, he seems to have entered 
 into various arrangements relative to his future labours, for he engaged the 
 able assistance of his second cousin, Thomas Wedgwood, then a potter in the 
 china works at Worcester. Their agreement bears the date of December 30, 
 
 F 
 
18 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 1758, and there is little doubt but that his hire of the Ivy House bears the 
 same, or at least that of Martinmas, the nth of November preceding. Thomas 
 Wedgwood was to enter upon his labours on the 1st day of May, 1759, and 
 continue them till Martinmas 1765. But the connexion was lifelong, for at 
 the latter date service was changed into partnership ; and till his death in 
 1788, Thomas Wedgwood held an interest in all Josiah Wedgwood’s useful, 
 as distinguished from his ornamental productions. 
 
 Of those several grandsons of Gilbert Wedgwood who became potters 
 towards the close of the reign of Charles II. or in that of James, was 
 one Aaron, a most skilful man, as were also his sons after him. Two 
 of them, Thomas and John Wedgwood, born respectively in 1703 and 1705, 
 commenced business for themselves, and carried it forward with such untiring 
 industry and skill, that by middle life they were wealthy men. Their father 
 died in 1743, and three years previously they had built themselves a capacious 
 substantial brick-house in the centre of the town, and close upon their works. 
 This house was then the wonder of everybody, and still standing is known to 
 this day as the Big House. Their manufacturing premises having been 
 repeatedly added to, were large, for they carried on an extensive export trade 
 in white and cream-colour goods ; but now wishing to retrench their business, 
 they let a small outlying part of these works, and with it an adjacent cottage, 
 which from its being partially-covered with ivy, was known as the Ivy House, 
 to their cousin, Josiah Wedgwood, at a rent of £10 per annum. Here in the 
 spring of 1759 he commenced business. His habits being frugal, he had 
 probably saved a little money whilst Whieldon’s partner. He had on coming 
 of age received £20 under his father’s will. Mrs. Egerton, who died in 1756, 
 left him a legacy of £10, and his eldest brother, who had succeeded to her 
 property, and now resided at the Overhouse, was a comparatively wealthy man. 
 Such were some of his resources, though undoubtedly they were small, where¬ 
 with to start a business. But his connexions were good, he was acquainted 
 with all the ordinary outlets and openings of the trade, he had made friends 
 whilst Whieldon’s partner, and at that date, one if not two of his brothers, 
 held sinecure posts under Government, lived in London and moved in good 
 society. 
 
 He commenced, however, humbly, making such small and choice goods as 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 l 9 
 
 were sure to find a ready sale in Birmingham and London. Embossed tiles, 
 pickle-leaves, knife-hafts in imitation of agate and other crystalline stones, 
 plates resembling tortoise-shell and marble, and sugar and honey cups opening 
 in the middle, and so veined and richly coloured as to perfectly represent a fine 
 melon. In his first visit to England, Benjamin Franklin was so charmed by 
 the colour and general beauty of these articles, as to send a pair to Philadelphia 
 to his wife. Young Wedgwood also improved the fine green glaze he had 
 experimentalized for, whilst Whieldon’s partner; and it now appeared on 
 elegant dessert services beautifully moulded, veined and streaked so as to 
 perfectly represent various kinds of leaves, as we see them in the flush of spring 
 and summer. 
 
 It is a recent discovery, that Wedgwood at this early period, and for some 
 time after, made small figures after the manner of those of Bow. Shepherds 
 and shepherdesses, in groups and singly, children at play, and labourers and 
 artizans at work. These were for ornamenting mantel-shelves, buffets and 
 dressers. In Mr. Mayer’s Art Exhibition at Bebington, Cheshire, in the 
 autumn of last year, 1871, was one of these shepherds, very prettily modelled 
 and coloured. The name “Wedgwood,” in the large letters of this early time, 
 is unmistakeably stamped on the bottom. The statuette is in the ordinary 
 white body, and is about five inches high ; a blue jerkin covers the upper part, 
 and a dead lamb rests on the shoulders. It is altogether a very pretty and 
 choice figure, and no doubt a shepherdess originally paired with it. At. this 
 period John Bacon, the afterwards eminent sculptor, modelled this class of 
 subjects for a china work at Lambeth, and there is almost a certainty that 
 Wedgwood employed him in labours of this and other kinds; for the tiles he 
 painted in London seem from Shaw’s description to have been identical in 
 pattern with those which Wedgwood ornamented with reliefs at the Ivy 
 House in Burslem. 
 
 But this was not truly decorative or classic art, to both of which his 
 somewhat severe taste and ambition led. To ensure the production of works 
 of this character he perceived that capital was necessary, and that this would 
 arise through a general improvement in body, glaze, colour, form and 
 decoration of useful ware connected with the daily purposes of life. The 
 cream-coloured ware had been made in the district since 1725, and it had been 
 
20 
 
 Wedpwood and his Works. 
 
 gradually improved both in body and glaze; but many articles were cum¬ 
 bersome, the forms out of proportion and inelegant, and the decorations, 
 speaking generally, were mere rude scratches of various kinds filled in with 
 blue or black. He therefore invented tools of various kinds, took means to 
 improve the lathe, travelled secretly into the south of England and to Liver¬ 
 pool to ensure a good and constant supply of clay, improved what was then 
 known as Greatbach’s cream-coloured glaze, made his chief models and drew 
 his own patterns. As his circumstances improved he gradually drew around 
 him the best workmen the district afforded. He also hired others who had 
 worked at Birmingham, Liverpool, Worcester, and Bow. Thus in less than two 
 years from the date of his entering into trade for himself there appeared in the 
 shops of a few London dealers the earliest of those beautiful services known as 
 Wedgwood’s cream ware. Nothing of a like kind had been previously seen or 
 even imagined ; not only were the items of each dinner and dessert service of 
 a more complete character, stimulating, as it were, to new methods of cookery 
 and to a far larger use of such delicate viands as fruits, jellies, syrups and 
 creams, but the forms were symmetrical, chaste and perfect. Each plate fitted 
 its fellow ; dishes nestled into sizes larger or smaller, as though nature had 
 fashioned them. Lids fitted their respective vessels with geometrical precision ; 
 their stands might be removed and serve for other purposes. There were spoons 
 and ladles, and mustard pots, and countless other things. Then their weight 
 was that of porcelain, rather than earthenware, their durability great, their 
 colour toned and artistically beautiful, their touch like that of the finest ivory 
 or alabaster. The patterns of these early essays were simple. A brown or 
 blue line ; a pale brown or green leaf, strung delicately together by a tendril 
 thread. In some cases the edges of all articles were simply adorned ; in 
 others a wheat-ear was embossed, or perforations so made as to simulate the 
 most delicate basket-work. Many services were wholly plain ; their beauty 
 of form, glaze, colour, and finish being sufficient for admirers of simple and 
 severe taste. The appearance of these choice goods created a new era in 
 useful art; and the wealthy classes, many of whom were highly educated, had 
 travelled and seen the best work of antique art, eagerly purchased such articles 
 and spread their fame. The gentry of the midland counties soon heard of 
 Wedgwood, and sent orders to Burslem for his wares. From the commence- 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 2 I 
 
 ment of his business he had made himself useful to many of them by repairing 
 broken articles, and making matches for their dinner-services of Oriental delft; 
 for up to this period all higher class tables had depended upon importations 
 from India and France. In the one case the goods were costly; in the other 
 always brittle, and mostly warped and crazed. 
 
 His business increasing, he hired a second small manufactory, and later, 
 somewhere about 1763, a third, far more capacious, to which was attached a 
 comfortable roomy dwelling-house, with a strip of fore-court and a small 
 garden behind. It was known as the Brick-house Works, and being in the 
 hands of the trustees of a minor was to let for a short period. It stood on 
 the site now occupied by the Wedgwood Institute, and here it was that the 
 great potter commenced his more artistic productions. 
 
 Prior to his occupation of the Brick-house Works, known afterwards as 
 the Bell Works, Mr. Wedgwood made the acquaintance of his future partner, 
 Thomas Bentley. Injuring his diseased knee, on his way to Liverpool in the 
 spring of 1762, he was laid up for some weeks at an inn in that town, and 
 in order to relieve the tedium of confinement his able surgeon, Mr. Matthew 
 Turner, introduced to his patient one of his choicest friends, Thomas Bentley, 
 who occupied a good house in Paradise Street, and carried on in connexion 
 with a partner named James Boardman, a large wholesale trade in Manchester 
 goods, which at that date consisted chiefly of woollen cloth, flannel and hosiery. 
 Bentley was a fine, handsome, well-born, well-educated, prosperous man of 
 the same age as Wedgwood, and like him a Whig in politics and a Unitarian 
 in religious creed. A warm and sincere friendship sprung up at once between 
 them; similarity of tastes made them akin, and upon Wedgwood’s return to 
 Burslem a most interesting correspondence was begun, which ended only with 
 Bentley’s life. A large part of Wedgwood’s letters have been preserved ; but 
 those of Bentley have, unfortunately, not descended to our time. 
 
 On January 25, 1764, Josiah Wedgwood married his distant cousin, 
 Sarah Wedgwood of Spen Green ; a place on the borders of Cheshire, not 
 many miles from Burslem. Pier father was a wealthy cheese-factor, and 
 brother to John and Thomas Wedgwood, the rich and lately retired potters 
 of the Big House. She had received what in those days was considered a 
 good education, and the union proved in every way a fortunate and happy one. 
 
 G 
 
2 2 IVedgwood and his Works. 
 
 In the year succeeding (July 1765) Wedgwood received, through the good 
 offices of a daughter of Lord Chetwynd, an order to make a tea-service for Queen 
 Charlotte. It was to be after a given pattern, and the processes connected 
 with it were difficult and the materials costly; but the potter sparing, as 
 customary, no pains with his work, the result was exquisite and gave the 
 greatest pleasure to the Royal Lady. Patronage followed, orders were given 
 for table services in cream ware, which was thenceforth styled Queen’s Ware ; 
 and patterns being submitted to royal inspection, the King, after his customary 
 taste in most things, chose one which was plain, the Queen another ribbed on 
 the edges. Wedgwood now received the title of Potter to the Queen ; and on 
 the occasion of the birth of her next child, the Duke of York, he presented her 
 Majesty with a caudle set of much beauty, which was graciously accepted. 
 From this period to the end of his life specimens of all his choicest and finest 
 goods were, before they were seen by the public, invariably sent to Court. 
 
 It has been already said that in the spring of 1765 Wedgwood held a 
 room or two at a house in which his brother lodged in Cateaton Street, Alder- 
 manbury, for the reception of “ red engined tea-pots ” and other improved 
 goods from Staffordshire. Not long after, the necessity of a London warehouse 
 for the sale of goods was suggested in this way by one of the local aristocracy. 
 “Dr. Swan,” wrote Wedgwood to his brother John, July 29, 1765, “dined 
 with L d Gower this week; after dinner your Bro r Joss 5 Pot works were the 
 subject of conversation for some time, the Cream colour services in particular. 
 I believe it was his L d ship said that nothing of the sort could excel them for a 
 fine glaze, &c.” In a letter of a few days later this point is again referred to. 
 “ I just hinted to you that cream colour ware was a subject of conversation at 
 L d Gowers Table. Among other things his L d shP said that the late L d Boling- 
 broke collected all the various modeled earthenware he could in France which 
 were bro 1 over to England & that it wo d be worth my while to go to London 
 on purpose to see it—As his L d ship was so kind to mention a thing of that 
 sort at his table I day say he w d give me a proper introduction for that purpose 
 & this will be one inducement for my coming to London. — I am to wait upon 
 his L d ship at Trentham this week & hope the Duke of Bridgewater will be 
 there, when you shall hear further from me.” At the distance of little more 
 than a week we hear of a visit to the Brick-house Works : I have just had 
 
Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 23 
 
 the honour of the D. of Marlbr 0 , L d Gower, L d Spencer, & others at my 
 works—They have bo 1 some things & seem’d much entertain’d and pleas’d. 
 —The Gent n abovement’ d wonder I have not a wareh 0 in Lond n where patt ns 
 of all sorts I make may be seen.” 
 
 The result of this and other comments in letters was, that soon after 
 rooms were taken in the house of a shoemaker in Charles Street, Grosvenor 
 Square, over which presided a clerk named Cox, sent purposely from Stafford¬ 
 shire. Here goods were shown, orders received, and hither came, from almost 
 every hall and country house in England, and often Scotland, the letters of 
 hospitable squires, titled dames, and illiterate housekeepers, in relation to 
 those services, the poorest fragments of which we now so highly prize. 
 
 But at no late date these rooms and the service of one clerk were found 
 wholly inadequate for the necessities of a trade which grew day by day. 
 Accordingly, in the spring of 1768 Wedgwood hired a large shop and 
 premises at the top of St. Martin’s Lane, facing Newport Street, and there 
 in the August of the same year he opened the new warehouse with a large 
 show of fine goods; the royal arms re-gilt and placed conspicuously above the 
 door, indicating the highest patronage. 
 
 Even prior to commencing business for himself Wedgwood perceived, as 
 his father and many other manufacturers had done previously, that the means 
 of internal communication must be improved before the staple trade of northern 
 Staffordshire could have any true development. The roads of the Pottery 
 district, as elsewhere all over the county, were as bad as they could possibly be ; 
 the chief highways founderous in the extreme ; bye-roads and lanes all but 
 impassable. Seeing at length this necessity for improvement, the inhabitants 
 of the Potteries presented in 1762 a Petition to Parliament, in relation to a 
 road which ran quite through their district, giving access both to Liverpool 
 and the Cheshire salt-works. The Act was passed and the road improved ; 
 but it was soon seen that speedier and easier means for the carriage of 
 materials and manufactured goods were needed. The Duke of Bridgewater 
 had already proved by experiment the practicability and advantages of Inland 
 Navigation ; and thus a subscription was entered into for uniting the rivers 
 Trent and Mersey by a canal. The scheme had been suggested years 
 previously. The great engineer Brindley was employed to make the necessary 
 
24 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 surveys, and upon his Report that a Canal connecting the two rivers was 
 practicable, an application was made to Parliament; and in 1765 an Act for 
 constructing the same was obtained. The work was begun July 26, 1766, 
 and finished in May, 1777; in which interval Brindley, worn out with incessant 
 anxiety and fatigue, had breathed his last. From the first Wedgwood was 
 most enthusiastic in pushing the canal scheme. He subscribed largely, was 
 Treasurer to the Committee, and for his long, noble and unwearied services he 
 refused recompense of any kind. Before the Bill was passed he visited and 
 tried his powers of persuasion with a large number of the reluctant landowners 
 of Cheshire and Staffordshire ; he wrote numberless letters, gave his evidence 
 before Parliamentary Committees, and with his own hand raised the first sod 
 of this important and memorable work. Indirectly, as directly, his reward 
 was great. His public spirit and patriotism secured him friends in all 
 directions. He was seen to be a man capable of conducting and controlling 
 large and important schemes for the benefit of his country; and the prejudices 
 which at that day existed against those who held other than commonly 
 received views in religion and politics vanished in his genial presence. This 
 intercourse with men of rank and standing, many of whom had travelled, were 
 highly educated, and the possessors of works of art, proved often of importance; 
 and odd as it may sound, there can be little doubt but that the business and 
 success of the Trent and Mersey Navigation helped greatly, if indirectly, the 
 establishment and progress of Wedgwood’s ornamental art. 
 
 But this ceaseless work of body and mind led to the return of suffering 
 in his injured knee, and with it other and more serious symptoms. He had 
 for some time foreseen that he must submit to the amputation of his diseased 
 limb, if he wished to insure health and life, or to personally superintend his 
 manufactory in all its varied details. He therefore on May the 28th, 1768, 
 had his right leg cut off just below the knee; the operation taking place in the 
 presence of Mr. Bentley and two surgeons. At that date anaesthetics were 
 unknown ; but he bore the operation with manly fortitude. He would not be 
 assisted or have the operation hidden from his view ; but seated in his chair 
 underwent it without a shrink or a groan. Its success was thus announced at 
 the close of an invoice of cream ware, by Peter Swift, Wedgwood’s chief 
 clerk to the “ house” in Newport Street. “ Mr. Wedgwood has this day had 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 25 
 
 his leg taken of (sic) and is as well as can be expected after such an execution.” 
 A few days later he added, “ I have now the pleasure to acquaint you that 
 Mr. Wedgwood Continues in a good way, his Leg was opened on Thursday 
 for the first time, and both the surgeons said it could not possibly be better, 
 and he has every good symptom, so that we have the greatest hopes of a 
 perfect cure.” Through the care of his physician and surgeons, and the 
 tender ministrations of his wife, and friend Bentley, Wedgwood rapidly 
 recovered, and was soon able to add a postscript to a letter Bentley wrote for 
 him on June 13th, to Cox, the London clerk. “ This is the first time I have 
 set pen to paper, except to sign my name, since the surgeons laid their hands 
 on me, but I hope I shall be able to continue writing a little now I have begun 
 again : my surgeon has given me an invitation to dine with him at N. Castle 
 this day fortnight, which I hope to be able to accept.” 
 
 During this critical illness the interest excited was great. In London 
 Lord Cathcart, the Russian ambassador, Lord Bessborough, the Duke of 
 Bedford, the Duke of Marlborough, the Hon. Miss Chetwynd at Buckingham 
 House, Sir William Meredith, Sir George Saville, called at, or sent daily to 
 Charles Street, for the latest account of Wedgwood’s condition. The local 
 
 gentry and others were equally solicitous. This proves that his great ability 
 
 * 
 
 as an artistic potter, and his public services, were already known and recognized. 
 
 From the period of his marriage, and more particularly since Royal and 
 aristocratic patronage had added so largely to his business, Wedgwood had 
 been desirous of purchasing in Burslem, or its vicinity, an estate on which he 
 could build a manufactory equal to his increasing trade, where he should have 
 scope for the productive effects he contemplated, and where he could fittingly 
 enter upon a more organised system of details than had hitherto been possible 
 in his works. His friend, Mr. Boulton, at Soho, had already introduced this 
 organisation with the best possible results ; and Mr. Wedgwood saw to what 
 account it might be turned in his own establishments. Land had become 
 trebled in value in and about Burslem during the preceding twenty years. 
 Manufacturers and owners were as unwilling to let on lengthened lease as to 
 sell ; and those works, which on rare occasions came into the market for sale 
 or hire, were wholly inadequate to his purpose. It was, therefore, with 
 gratulation that he heard of an estate lying on the banks of the intended 
 
 H 
 
26 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 canal, and within two miles both of Burslem and Newcastle which was likely to 
 be sold. After much weary negotiation with its owner, an aged lady of the 
 name of Ashenhurst, its purchase was portionally effected, and early possession 
 stipulated upon payment of a life interest. It was of considerable extent, part 
 of it occupying a high and lengthened ridge overlooking the valley leading to 
 Newcastle. This, as Wedgwood well knew, offered great capabilities for 
 decorative effects, both in building, planting, and landscape gardening; whilst 
 in the valley below stretched out many acres of level surface, on which could 
 be erected a manufactory on an extensive scale, and the necessary appendage 
 of official and workmen’s dwellings. 
 
 In this business relating to the purchase of the estate, known afterwards as 
 Etruria, Bentley, as in all other things, was duly informed and consulted. “ I 
 have now bo*, the Estate I mention’d to you, for which I am to pay ^3,000 at 
 Michaelmas next,” wrote Wedgwood to his friend ; and a few weeks later, upon 
 his return to Burslem, after one of his frequent visits to Liverpool, he thus 
 invited him : “ My Sally says your fat sides require a good deal of shakeing, 
 & wo d recommend a journey on horseback not in the Coach, to Burslem, 
 & is half angry with me for coming home without you, but your last letter 
 hath brought her into a little better temper, as she expects the pleasure of not 
 only seeing you here in a little time, but likewise a jant to Liverpool in con¬ 
 sequence of your visit; besides she will not fix upon a spot for either house 
 or Gardens, no, nor even the Stables till you have viewed & given your 
 opinion of the premises; so now my dear Sir, you are invited to the Ridge- 
 house Estate in quality of a Brown , 1 & this may remove my only objection 
 to seeing you here, I mean your takeing so long a journey to so little purpose. 
 Ten Guineas if I remember right is the price of a single call, with or without 
 the advantage of his direction, to make a Lawn & piece of Water here, 
 Cut down that wood & plant it there, level that rising ground & raise 
 yonder valley, &c. &c. But for ten times the business, fifty miles rideing, & 
 a hundred times the genius, why we must expect to be sure to pay accord¬ 
 ingly. One thing further permit me to mention, that we shall be affronted 
 with a short visit, but very thankfull for a long one, so pray settle your 
 
 Alluding to the celebrated landscape gardener of the day. 
 
 1 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 27 
 
 business accordingly before you mount your Rosinante, & as a salvo or 
 quietus to your Conscience for the loss of so much time, which I know to be 
 very squeamish, & am glad it is so, on these occasions, tell the troublesome 
 sprite, that as our connections are to become extensive in the Potting business, 
 it is absolutely necessary you sh d visit the manufacture, see what is going 
 forw d there, make your bargains accordingly, & lend your assistance towards 
 its further improvement. Tell him y r fr d Wedgwood hath some pretty things 
 laid up for you, which he cannot sell without your first seeing them, & I 
 hope he may be prevail’d upon to let you spend a fortn* or so in this neigh¬ 
 bourhood.” Bentley paid his visit, and the days of it were filled up by business 
 and pleasure. There was the canal, engine-turning, antiquities, exports of 
 ware to the colonies, supplies of clay from new sources, and countless schemes 
 for the future to discuss. Wedgwood displayed the “ pretty things” he had 
 promised ; and long autumnal noons were spent amidst the gorsy uplands of 
 the Ridge House, in planning the future Etruria. In rough detail, the whole 
 was set out during this visit, though various modifications were subsequently 
 effected. 
 
 Soon after his first acquaintanceship with Wedgwood, Bentley had added 
 an export trade in earthenware to his other business, and his orders were often 
 considerable. His ability as a merchant being thus shown, some idea of his 
 removal from Liverpool seems to have occurred to his friend. In the spring of 
 1766, Bentley’s mercantile transactions had still further increased, chiefly 
 through the export of earthenware to the American Colonies and West India 
 Islands ; his calls upon the Burslem warehouse were considerable, and his 
 business was in fact undergoing a rapid transformation from one of general 
 merchandise into that of earthenware alone. “ I am extremely happy,” wrote 
 Wedgwood to him, “in the thoughts of haveing our connections increase in any 
 way & the pleasure will grow in proportion as those connections can be made 
 more agreeable or advantageous to you ; & as you are to be a Pot merch 1 , you 
 may rest assured that in everything I can make a purchase, you shall be 
 enabled to serve your friends to the utmost of their wishes ; so take in orders 
 for anything this country produces & in what way, you think fit, but whole 
 Crates will certainly be attended with least trouble. With respect to com¬ 
 mission or profitt upon the goods you sell I shall very readily conform to any 
 
28 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 plan, you may have determin’d upon; or if you have not settled that matter, 
 I wo d make a proposal, a very simple one to you, respecting this new branch 
 of Trade betwixt us ; which is, that whatever goods I purchase to send you, we 
 divide the proffit upon them Equally betwixt us, which is to pay you for the 
 trouble of selling & me for that of buying in the goods ; & for the goods 
 of my own manufacture I allow you io P C‘ Comm 11 as before; & I hope 
 
 by this plan a trade may be struck out worth our attending to.I sho d 
 
 be glad to have your thoughts upon this business when convenient. On 
 Thursday you may expect another cargoe of cream colour & perhaps a 
 little green & Gold for hot Climates, with some pretty things for the Ladys 
 
 who honour you with their company.I have only one objection to 
 
 sending you a sortment of vases, which is that they wo d very probably some 
 of them travel back again into Staffordshire.” In this last paragraph we have 
 the first indication of that system of piracy from which Wedgwood subse¬ 
 quently suffered so largely; and the letter further shows us with what 
 remarkable rapidity his improvements, especially those of body and decoration, 
 followed each other. During his partnership with Whieldon, green ware first 
 came into general use. At the period of his early patronage by Sir William 
 Meredith, and afterwards when the Queen gave her first order, green ware 
 with gilt sprigs was considered a choice and costly article ; whereas in a year 
 from the date of the royal patronage, Wedgwood, by the mastery of his art, 
 had wholly superseded it, and was anxious to consign it to the tables of West 
 India and Carolina planters. 
 
 About this date Wedgwood made what was probably his first medallion 
 likeness. It was that of the great statesman William Pitt, who was then at the 
 height of popularity both here and in the colonies, from the part he had taken 
 in the repeal of the American Stamp Act. In deference to the popular taste, 
 his likeness, in the form of cheap medals and prints, was hawked about every¬ 
 where ; and Green and Sadler of Liverpool, taking advantage of these, issued 
 printed copies upon small oval plaques of white pottery, which were sold at 
 the price of a penny or twopence. As a matter of course these were at once 
 reproduced in the Staffordshire Potteries. Wedgwood, who in everything 
 could strike out a path for himself, and ardently admired the great patriot, put 
 in force a more artistic idea. He had a model made in London from a good 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 29 
 
 print, in which Pitt’s features, in all their strong outline and marked expression, 
 were admirably rendered. From this he formed a medallion likeness. The 
 surface or ground made of ordinary clay, coloured in the mass of a chocolate 
 or brown colour, was of oval form, and about three inches and a half in height, 
 by two and a half inches in the widest part. The medallion, which rested on 
 this in low relief, was white, in some cases cream colour. The whole was 
 highly glazed ; and being nothing more than ordinary pottery, these medallions 
 were sold in the markets and all over the country at a cheap rate, perhaps 
 fourpence or sixpence each; and at a still lower price as soon as the original 
 was pirated in various coloured bodies by inferior manufacturers. This little 
 plaque or medallion was thus noticed by Wedgwood in one of his letters to 
 Bentley. “ What do you think of sending Mr. Pitt upon Crockery ware to 
 America ? A Quantity might certainly be sold there now, & some advantage 
 made of the American prejudice in favour of that great man. L d Gower 
 bro 1 his family to see my works the other day & asked me if I had not sent 
 Mr. Pitt over in shoals to America. If you happen to do anything in that 
 way we can divide a tolerable profitt & sell at the same price with Sadler.” 
 
 Towards the close of the same year, 1766, Wedgwood appears to have 
 made his first proposals to Bentley relative to partnership, and the con¬ 
 centration of their energy and talent in one direction. It was a union of 
 interests the former had long desired ; and now that the prospects were, in 
 every way, so encouraging, of bringing ornamental ware of many kinds to 
 a perfection hitherto unknown, he naturally wished to secure the aid 
 and countenance of a friend whose fidelity, judgment and great ability he 
 had fully tested. Wedgwood perhaps felt that Bentley was wasting his 
 singular powers in trivial, obscure and miscellaneous labours, instead of 
 concentrating them on more important objects; whilst on his own part, he 
 wished, by resigning a portion of his directive authority, to secure more time 
 for chemical and artistic experiments; these being, as he well knew, the basis on 
 which a continuity of progress rested. But with rare modesty, Bentley raised 
 several objections to this union ; principally on account of his little knowledge 
 of the potter’s art. To these the reply was very characteristic of Wedgwood’s 
 generosity and high opinion of his friend’s versatile abilities.—“ I have read 
 your letter many times over, & find several of the objections to our nearer 
 
 r 
 
30 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 approach may be surmounted, & I shall speak of those you have mention’d in 
 the order you have stated them.—The first is ‘ Your total ignorance of the 
 business.’—That I deny, as friend Tristram says to St. Paul—you have taste, 
 the best foundation for our intended concern & which must be our Primum 
 Mobile; for without that, all will stand still, or better it did so; & for the rest 
 it will soon be learn’d by so apt a scholar. The very air of this Country will 
 soon inspire you with the more mechanical part of our trade—The difficulty 
 of leaving your business in Liverpool, which seemeth now to be altering for 
 the better, I cannot so easily obviate; this being a matter of Calculation, in 
 which there is no data to proceed upon, but probabilities of future con¬ 
 tingencies, which we cannot investigate, or command with the certainty 
 I could wish my friend to have in a matter of so much importance to his 
 interest. I have it’s true, a great opinion of the design answering our most 
 sanguine expectations with respect to proffit; but if you should suffer as much 
 on the other hand by having your attention taken off your mercantile 
 concerns, you wo d be a loser upon the whole, though / sho d not; & to what 
 degree that loss might be extended I can have no idea, nor you any certainty, 
 unless we co d divine in what proportion your absence wo d affect the success, 
 or prevent the increase of your commerce. 
 
 “ The money objection is obviated to my hand, & I doubt not in a way 
 that will be agreeable to us both. But the leaving your friends, & giving 
 up a thousand agreeable connections & pleasures at Liverpool, for which you 
 can have no compensation in kind (indeed my friend I know from experience 
 you cannot); this staggers my hopes more than anything else put together, & 
 allways hath done, for I have often seriously thought at it before I rec d your 
 letter, & as I wish you to see every shade in this chequer’d piece, permit me 
 to ask you . . . Can you give up the rational enjoyment of your Philosophical 
 Club, for the peurile tdte-a-tdte of a country fireside? and to include all under 
 this head in one question, Can you exchange the future opportunities of 
 seeing & conversing with your learned & ingenious friends, which your 
 present situation affords you, besides ten thousand other elegancies & enjoy¬ 
 ments of a Town life, to employ yourself amongst mechanicks, dirt, & smoke, 
 inliven’d indeed with so much of the Pastoral life as you shall choose for 
 yourself out of the Ridgehouse Estate?—If this prospect does not fright you 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 3 i 
 
 I have some hopes, & if you think you could really fall in love with & make 
 a mistress of this new business as I have done of mine, I sho d have little or 
 no doubt of our success ; for if we consider the great variety of colours in our 
 raw Materials, the infinite ductility of Clay, & that we have universal beauty 
 to copy after, we have certainly the fairest prospect of inlarging this branch of 
 Manufacture to our wishes; & as Genius will not be wanting, I am firmly 
 perswaded that our pvoffits will be in proportion to our application; & I am 
 as confident, that it wo d be beyond comparison more congenial & delightful 1 
 
 to every particle of matter, sense & spirit in your composition, to be the 
 
 Creator, as it were, of beauty, rather than merely the vehicle, or medium to 
 convey it from one hand to another; if other circumstances can but be render’d 
 tolerable. Let us therefore endeavour to take a more distinct view of the 
 outlines of our project, which may furnish us with some amusement at least, 
 & perhaps it may not be the first time we have pleased ourselves with future 
 schemes that have eluded our grasp, & vanished away like the morning Cloud 
 or early dew. 
 
 “ The time of coming you may make agreeable to yourself; it will be 
 
 12 months at least before the works can be built, & I suppose you wo d 
 
 choose to have a house, with so much of a farm as will keep you a Horse, a 
 Cow, & a Pig, with a few other domestick animals; all which will take up 
 some time to make ready. 
 
 “. . . . The articles to begin the work will be—Root flower-pots of various 
 sorts ornamented & plain. Essence pots, Bough pots, flowerpots, & Cornucopias. 
 
 “Vases & ornaments of various sizes, colours, mixtures & forms, 
 ad infinitum. 
 
 “Then proceed to Toilet furniture, & enrich these & other ornaments 
 with gold burnt in. 
 
 “ Elegant Teachests may be made. 
 
 “ Snuff & other boxes. 
 
 “ Fish, Fowl, & Beasts, with two leged Animals in various attitudes. 
 
 “ Ten thousand other substantial forms , that neither you nor I, nor 
 anybody else, know anything of at present. 
 
 “ If all these things sh d fail us, I hope our good genius will direct us in 
 the choice of others.” 
 
32 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 In the spring of the following year, during a month’s visit to London, 
 Wedgwood seems to have expressed his wishes on the subject of the partner¬ 
 ship more strongly than he had hitherto done, and Bentley no longer resisted 
 the manly and eloquent appeal. “Your most acceptable letter of the 15th,” 
 wrote Wedgwood to him, “ gave me the highest pleasure in seting before me a 
 nearer prospect than I had yet had, of a union that I had long coveted, and 
 which I do not doubt will be lasting, delightful, & beneficial to us both ; & 
 as to the time & manner of leaving Liverpool, make it most agreeable to your¬ 
 self in every respect, and it will be perfectly so to me.” 
 
 At this period and after, Wedgwood had considerable difficulty in relation 
 to his purchase of further portions of the Ridgehouse estate; the first part 
 acquired being that set apart for his house, grounds, and other necessary 
 dwellings. He was impatient to build what he called a “vase work;” and 
 when he found that it was uncertain whether or not he could procure the land, 
 he wrote to Bentley, “ I must build elsewhere, for build I must. Pray be 
 ordering your matters to leave them at a short warning. I expect a sett of 
 works will be to lett in a few weeks, with a tolerable smart house to them ; & 
 ornamentals of various forms & for various uses are much wanted. Cream 
 colour Tyles are much wanted, & the consumption will be great for Dairys, 
 Summerhouses, Temples, &c., &c. This article will come under the Orna¬ 
 mental Class, & you may be looking out for a sober Tyle maker amongst 
 your Potthouses to bring along with you. I am going on with my experi¬ 
 ments for various Earths, Clays, &c., for different bodys, and shall next 
 go upon Glazes. Many of my experiments turn out to my wishes & 
 convince me more & more, of the extensive capability of our manufacture for 
 further improvements. It is at present comparatively in a rude uncultivated 
 state, & may readily be polished & bro* to much greater perfection—Such 
 a revolution, I believe, is at hand, & you must assist in & profitt by it.” In 
 a letter addressed two months later to Bentley, we first hear of the Ridgehouse 
 estate by its new and famous name. After spending some days in Liverpool 
 with Bentley, Wedgwood wrote from Burslem. “ I am allways so much better 
 satisfy’d in my own mind, & pleas’d with everything about me after spending 
 a few days with you, that I long more & more for the time of your settlement 
 at Hetruria, when I may feast every day upon what I am now permitted to 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 33 
 
 taste of only two or three times a year or so.” Mr. Bentley on his own part 
 had already begun the preparative work for transforming himself into an orna¬ 
 mental potter. He made drawings for candlesticks, saltcellars, and other 
 articles. At Wedgwood’s request he set his sister-in-law and other ladies of 
 his acquaintance to cut out on paper various ornamental shapes ; he took a boy 
 apprentice as modeller and draughtsman, and inquired for artists in several 
 directions. In relation to one of these, who had suggested some sphinxes as a 
 support to a column Wedgwood had modelled, the latter wrote to Bentley, “ I 
 have given Mr. Stringer an invitation to Burslem, & believe when he comes 
 he will stay some time, perhaps a fortnight or longer with me, as I have pro¬ 
 posed to him the Painting of a Groupe of figures .... If you can contrive to 
 come & spend a week with us when Mr. Stringer is here .... we can sketch 
 out a vast number of pretty things in that time, which can be laid by to mature 
 till we can bring them into use. A Manufacturer of Ornaments cannot have 
 too great a store of that sort.” Of his impatience to enter upon these realms 
 of artistic grace and beauty, we have evidence in his own words : “ Vases with 
 high Crown’d hats ! Have you ever thought seriously, as you ought to do, on 
 that subject. I never think of it, but new improvements crowd thick upon me, 
 & allmost overwhelm my patience, so much do I long to be engaged in that 
 delightful employment, which I have every day fuller assurance of making as 
 profitable to the purse, as it must be pleasant to the mind, but you know what 
 sort of partner it requires ; either resolve quickly to join me yourself, or find 
 me out another kindred genius. I have agreed with a brickmaker, & shall 
 build away like fury next year.” 
 
 Wedgwood could now speak definitely of his intentions, for about this 
 date, December 1767, the owner died, and the remaining portions of the future 
 Etruria passed into his possession. Various plans for both the hall and works 
 had been in circulation since an early part of the year, and had undergone 
 modifications at different hands. By January, 1768, the house intended for 
 Mr. Bentley was tiled, and a portion of the works ready for furnishing. But 
 during the summer and autumn various hindrances arose from want of timber, 
 bricks, and the cupidity and shortcomings of the architect. In August the 
 Etruscan works were nearly ready for roofing; and in November Wedgwood 
 wrote thus to Bentley, “ The works are covered in, & they are beginning upon 
 
 K 
 
34 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 Cellar Arches, & the chamber & ground floors; as soon as any of them are 
 finished I shall order them to be fitted up, & put some men into them to 
 make saggars, prepare clay, build ovens &c. &c. that we may begin to do 
 something in earnest as soon as possible. The Partnership books should be 
 opened on Monday the 14th inst., 1 as some hands (Potters) will begin there at 
 that time, & if you can leave home, Liverpool I wo d say, for I must now 
 consider Etruria as your home, I think it will be absolutely necessary for you 
 to be here the preceding Saturday at farthest; & we have put off our journey 2 
 to the 16th, that we may have a few days to settle matters together before 
 we part, concerning fitting up the Works, employing the hands hired for 
 Etruria, &c.” In the succeeding spring other portions of the works were 
 finished ; in May everything relating to vases was removed from Burslem to 
 Etruria, and on June 13th Bentley was present at the opening of the 
 Etruscan Works. It was an important day; and Wedgwood commemorated 
 it by throwing, that is forming, six of the earliest of his Etruscan vases, 
 Bentley aiding by turning the wheel. These vases were, a few months later, 
 sent to London to be painted. Three of them are still preserved ; and one, if 
 not more, was buried beneath the foundations of Etruria Hall, where it 
 
 probably still remains. They are of a bluish tinge of black; this effected, as 
 
 * 
 
 Wedgwood wrote to his friend, for the purpose of giving them “a look of 
 antiqueness.” On this bluish black, and painted in encaustic colours of two 
 shades of red, is a subject taken from a bas-relief in Sir William Hamilton’s 
 great work, or more probably from a vase in that of Count de Caylus. It 
 represents “ Hercules and his Companion in the Garden of the Hesperides.” 
 The two borders are from the same source. On the reverse side is an inscription 
 to the effect, that it is the product of the first day’s work at Etruria in Stafford¬ 
 shire by Wedgwood and Bentley; and within the band or fillet above the 
 foot are inserted the words “ Artes Etruriae Renascuntur.” The form and 
 finish of these vases were far excelled at no distant date, and the painting 
 showed improvement, as the hands employed attained more skill ; but so far 
 as a design can symbolize a purpose, nothing more appropriate could have 
 been selected from the whole range of the heathen mythology. For it typified 
 
 1 November, 1768. 
 
 2 Wedgwood and his wife were about to spend some weeks in Newport Street. 
 
Wedgzvood and his Works. 
 
 35 
 
 that the master of the new Etruria, like another Hercules, entered, after long 
 probationary labours, the garden of a great art, where fruit richer and more 
 beautiful than the fabled apples was to be gathered and garnered for 
 posterity. 
 
 In July Mr. Bentley’s house was fit for habitation and he was expected at 
 Etruria ; but a month later all these plans were changed. Bentley had left 
 Liverpool finally, had settled for a short time in Newport Street, and was in 
 treaty for a house at Chelsea. The reasons appear to have been the great and 
 astonishing demand for vases of every kind, the extent of Russian orders, the 
 necessity for insuring privacy, and the concentration of enamelling and other 
 decorative processes in one building. Accordingly towards the close of the 
 year, Bentley took up his abode in a handsome garden house in Little Cheyne 
 Row, Chelsea; and the workshops, a stone’s throw off and picturesquely 
 surrounded by trees and fields, were full of busy draftsmen, enamellers and 
 painters. About the same period Wedgwood took up his abode in the house 
 intended for Bentley at Etruria. The “ flitting ” was effected during his 
 journey home from London with some friends, and he thus refers to it in a 
 letter to Bentley. “ We were three days upon the road, though we lost no 
 time, & travel’d a little by moonlight each evening, but at the last stage 
 Etruria—I was rewarded for all the risque & pains I had undergone in a 
 tedious, long & dirty journey. I found my Sally & family at Etruria! just 
 come there to take possession of the Etruscan plains, & sleep upon them for 
 the first night. Was not this very clever now of my own dear Girl’s contriving? 
 She expected her Joss on the very evening he arrived ; had got the disagreeable 
 business of removing all over ; & I wo d not have been another night from 
 home for the Indies. To night we are to sup 120 of our workmen at the 
 Townhall, & shall take up our lodgings here at Burslem.” 1 From this period 
 building at Etruria went rapidly onwards; by April, 1771, the great square 
 of the Works was completed, and the final removal from Burslem, which 
 however extended over several months, took place. In 1773 there was yet a 
 final portion of the Works to build, and they were completed in the following 
 year, 1774. We have now reached the period of the issue of the first 
 Catalogue. 
 
 1 At the Overhouse, his brother’s residence. 
 
3^ 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 Wedgwood, as we have seen, had long been busy with experiments for 
 the improvements of white bodies ; and later for the introduction of one or 
 more, of a perfectly new character. His various friends made inquiries in all 
 possible directions for the materials he required ; and their labours were, in 
 many instances, crowned with success. His first purpose seems to have been 
 to rival the French ware, which was a sort of semi-porcelain; but the success 
 of these experiments led, in no long time, to his greatest discovery—that of 
 the use of terra ponderosa, or the carbonate of baryta. By employing this 
 he found he could produce a fine, white, hard and wax-like body; capable of 
 high polish, and retaining after modelling and firing great sharpness of out¬ 
 line. But it was too Protean in its character to be always relied upon, when 
 exposed to intense heat. He therefore continued his experiments; and 
 ultimately by substituting the sulphate for the carbonate of baryta, he produced 
 the composition known as jasper; and which, it may be truly said, is one 
 of the finest bodies ever invented by the potter for artistic purposes. 
 
 Beyond its occasional use in glaze, spar was a mineral untried by potters 
 prior to Wedgwood ; although the induction would almost naturally occur, 
 that a body hard, semi-opaque and polished, would under proper manipulative 
 conditions, yield a fine ingredient for mixing with clay. The Germans had 
 derived a considerable supply of this spar from England for full twenty or 
 thirty years previous to this date; and, as though their secret was too good 
 to be known, they had used great mystery in procuring it from the lead mines 
 of Anglezark in Lancashire, and also in its exportation ; but Wedgwood seems 
 to have derived his first hint from Pott, an able writer on mineralogy. He 
 too procured specimens from Anglezark, and from various other sources native 
 and foreign ; but ultimately his supplies of baryta, or cawk as it is still locally 
 termed, were procured for him from the lead mines of Derbyshire by Mr. 
 Whitehurst, an able naturalist and an old friend of Bentley’s. The utmost 
 precaution was exercised, not only in order to disguise what it was, but from 
 whence it was derived. For a considerable period it was sent in the rough 
 state to London; there it was pounded and sifted ; sent thence in barrels by 
 coasters to Liverpool, and so by waggon or canal to Etruria. From the 
 wharf it was brought to the hall by night, and conveyed into cellars which ran 
 beneath Wedgwood’s study and private rooms ; there he effected his mixtures 
 
Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 37 
 
 in privacy. Eventually the secret oozed out, through the treachery of a 
 workman; and the use of cawk or spar, as the chief ingredient in the jasper 
 body, became generally known in the Potteries. 
 
 But Wedgwood had many disappointments and misgivings, before final 
 results of value were obtained. Writing to Bentley in the autumn of 1768, 
 he said: “ My tryals turn out admirably & will enable us to do such things 
 as were never done before.” But his most promising experiments had often 
 to stand still for want of time, and Bentley often urged their renewal. “You 
 want a finer body for gems,” he replied to one of these reminders. “ I think a 
 fine China body would not do. I have several times mixed bodies for this 
 purpose; but some of them miscarried and others have been lost or spoiled for 
 want of my being able to attend to and go on with the experiments. At present 
 I cannot promise to engage in a course of experiments. I feel that close 
 application will not do for me. If I am stronger in the spring something may 
 be done.” Instead, however, of waiting for the spring, he soon afterwards set. 
 earnestly to work, and early in February 1773, just prior to a visit to London, 
 he reported : “ I have made some most promising experiments lately upon finer 
 bodies for Gems & other things ; some proof of which I shall bring along 
 with me.” 
 
 Thus, in the first edition of Wedgwood and Bentley’s Catalogue, published 
 in 1773, we find three bodies or compositions for ornamental purposes speci¬ 
 fied. First, a terra cotta, resembling vitrescent or crystalline stones in all 
 their variations; next, the basaltes, an extremely hard and fine porcelain ; 
 and third, a fine white biscuit ware, or terra cotta. In the next edition of the 
 Catalogue, the second edition published in the following year, 1774, this white 
 body had been further improved, and is mentioned under two forms: the 
 biscuit ware, as previously, and as “ a fine white terra cotta of great beauty and 
 delicacy ; proper for cameos, portraits, & bas-reliefs.” In this latter compo¬ 
 sition we have undoubtedly the first and more imperfect formula of the jasper 
 body, the carbonate being used instead of, as ultimately, the sulphate of baryta. 
 
 The variegated and black bodies were not absolutely new. Their ordinary 
 constituents were known to every potter; for they had been made in the district 
 from time immemorial. The use of various coloured clays by blending them 
 together in one body, or by applying them in the decoration of vessels in a 
 
 L 
 
38 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 comparatively liquid state, as a sort of paint, is described by Dr. Plott; and 
 the successive stages of improvement were shown in the beautiful marbled, 
 tortoise-shell, and melon wares of Whieldon and other masters. The potters 
 had long been adepts in making black ware, by adding manganese to their 
 clays; and from the date of the Elers’ residence in their neighbourhood, im¬ 
 provements were successive : but Wedgwood by his chemical and manipulative 
 skill brought them severally to the state of splendid terra-cotta bodies; requir¬ 
 ing no outer glaze, capable, if necessary, of the highest polish, and rivalling the 
 natural substances they imitated in hardness, compactness, fineness, and dura¬ 
 bility. He effected his purposes by the addition of new materials, in certain 
 cases by the use of fritts, and by skilful firing. 
 
 Thus provided with suitable compositions, he turned his attention to the 
 production of vases, intaglios, cameos, and small oval and oblong bas-reliefs ; 
 the latter being in many instances mere enlargements of the subjects of the 
 cameos. The seals were usually in the black or basaltes body ; in others they 
 were in colours blended or laminated together, so as to have a wavy or streaky 
 appearance ; and as our great grandfathers were fond of using and wearing 
 large bunches of seals, they were, as perfection and beauty were attained, manu¬ 
 factured in great quantities. The devices impressed upon these were of course 
 all in intaglio, those of the cameos all in relief; and thus impressions from 
 antique gems were made to serve a double purpose—either the production of 
 perfect copies in incised lines, or in low relief; incision being produced by 
 cast, and cast by incision. Every coloured body he made was used at first by 
 Wedgwood for the ground-work of his cameos. Cream colour, basaltes, biscuit 
 ware, either with colours burnt in, or simply white. In very many instances 
 the reliefs themselves were coloured; as black on white, white on red or green, 
 buff on black or blue. One of the finest and most exact copies of the Marl¬ 
 borough gem, “ The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche,” is still extant in a rich 
 dark chocolate ground, with buff-relievo. In the earlier editions of the Cata¬ 
 logue, the power of transforming the finest gems into seals is thus referred to. 
 “ The intaglios in artificial basaltes are most excellent seals ; being exact im¬ 
 pressions from the finest gems; and therefore much truer than any engraved 
 copies can be; with the singular advantage of being little inferior in hardness 
 to the gems themselves. In this composition cameos may be converted into 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 39 
 
 seals ; without losing the drawing, the spirit and delicacy of the original work ; 
 so that gentlemen may have a great variety of seals at a small expense ; or have 
 an opportunity of making collections of perfect and durable copies of the finest 
 gems.” 
 
 A reference to Tassie’s “Catalogue of Impressions taken in Sulphur from 
 Engraved Gems,” will show how much Wedgwood was indebted to this 
 eminent master. As early as 1769, we find by bills yet extant, that he was 
 paying 2 d. each for impressions in sulphur, and is. each for those in enamel. 
 The cabinets of Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, Lord Bessborough, Sir Roger 
 Newdigate, and many other well-known collectors, were also opened to him, 
 and from these were procured a large number of the finest and most original 
 designs. Of 290 intaglios given in the list of the second edition of the Cata¬ 
 logue, 1774, 188 were from the splendid collection of Sir W. W. Wynne ; 
 these including many of the finest designs of antique art. They were likewise 
 reproduced as cameos, and enlarged into medallions, tablets, and bas-reliefs. 
 Designs were frequently sought in the British Museum, 1 in which Sir William 
 Hamilton had already placed a cabinet full of fine antiques. Prints were 
 secured ; and the best literary and illustrated works then extant were purchased 
 and, as results proved, were largely drawn upon. 2 
 
 The modellers up to the period of the first edition of the Catalogue were, 
 so far as we can now recover their names, at Etruria, William Greatbach, 
 William Wood, Voyez (temporarily), Hackwood, then just commencing his 
 invaluable services of sixty-three years, Massey, Bedson, Barrett, and about 
 six others ; in London, John Bacon, Tassie, Mrs. Landre, Burch, Parker, 
 Hoskins, and Grant, Stephan, Westwood, and a few more. In the first issue of 
 
 1 “ The Graces, by M. Burch, from an Etruscan bas-relief in Sir W. Hamilton’s cabinet in the 
 British Museum.” First edition of Catalogue, List u, No. 29. Burch, who lived in Macclesfield Street, 
 modelled many things for Wedgwood. 
 
 2 In August, 1770, the books belonging to the firm were set down by Wedgwood as follows:— 
 “Hamilton’s Etruscan Antiquities; Gemms Delin (sic), by Elizabeth Cherron, small fol.; Stuart’s Athens ; 
 Count Caylus’s Antiquities, 3 vols. (two further volumes were subsequently published); Temple of the 
 Muses, fol.; Rossi’s Statues, fol.; Iconologie Historique, De La Fosse, fol., and to these were soon after 
 added Spence’s Polymetis, Museum Odescaleum, sive Thesaurus Antiq. Gemmarum a Bartolo, Rome, 
 1750; Maffei and Agostini’s Gemms, fol.; Gravelot’s Antiquities; De Wilde Gemme Antique, 1703 ; 
 Agostini, by Gronovius ; Perrico’s Statues ; Ficoroni’s Gemms ; Middleton’s Antiquities.” Wedgwood 
 to Bentley, August 24, 1770. 
 
40 Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 the Catalogue the cameos and intaglios are undistinguishable from each other, 
 for they are mingled in one list. Of the eighty-two bas-reliefs, medallions 
 and tablets, a number were in black—basaltes—the rest in biscuit-ware, of 
 which some were in body and relief all white; others with painted grounds, 
 burnt in and white reliefs ; a few with lighter toned reliefs. Oblong tablets in 
 black, with Herculaneum pictures painted thereon in encaustic colours, are 
 also mentioned ; but as yet there was no body, except the black and white, 
 in which colours produced by oxides permeated the whole mass, as in the 
 manner of the jasper. The plaques and tablets, with painted and burnt-in 
 grounds, are now so extremely rare that we can direct attention but to one 
 specimen ; that in the possession of Mr. J. F. Streatfeild, Upper Brook Street, 
 and engraved in the last edition of Maryatt’s “ History of Pottery.” It 
 measures about 14 by 6 j inches; has Wedgwood and Bentley’s names on the 
 back in capitals; and formed originally the upper part of a marble chimney- 
 piece in the city of London. The subject is a Bacchanalian procession; and 
 the figures are in extraordinarily high relief. Some parts of all the figures, 
 the most prominent more particularly, have a brown tinge. Some consider 
 this to be the result of time or fire ; but it is more probably the effect of colour 
 laid on ; as both brown as also grey tints are spoken of in reference to these 
 early tablets; the purpose being undoubtedly to convey the embrowned hues 
 of a southern clime. A few years later, when tablets in the jasper body were 
 produced in the utmost perfection, it is not unlikely that those of an earlier 
 date fell into disrepute; and thus neglected and cast aside perished in 
 various ways. 
 
 The oval tablets, numbered from 2 to 6 in the first Catalogue, were in 
 basaltes, and derived from the period of the Renaissance. Four of these are 
 given in the accompanying illustrations and include—The War of Jupiter 
 and the Titans, the Feast of the Gods, the Marriage Supper of Perseus 
 and Andromeda, and an Antique Boar Hunt. A fifth, The Destruction 
 of Niobe’s Children, was omitted for want of space. At a later period these 
 plaques appeared in the jasper body; but the effect is certainly not so fine. 
 A high artistic authority agrees with us in thinking that these five designs 
 were originally produced in metal work. Three octagon tablets, viz. Apollo 
 and Marsyas, Apollo and Daphne, and Apollo and Python, were modelled by 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 4i 
 
 Mrs. Landre, for, in a bill of January, 1769, she charges £1. 15. for what she 
 styles the “ History of Apolow.” She also modelled various Bacchanalian 
 scenes, the heads of the English Poets, those of the Roman Emperors and 
 Empresses, and sundry other subjects. It is not generally known that 
 Wedgwood at this early date tried Scriptural subjects ; for we find Mrs. 
 Landre charging for “ 4 Scripture pieces,” “ Moses and the Serpents,” 
 “ Joseph,” “ The Lord’s Supper and Companion.” To these she added 
 “6 Friars,” “A Magdalen,” and a “Large Horse/’ and at a later date 
 “ Christ and the Virgin.” These pieces are not mentioned in the Catalogues. 
 One of two things is therefore certain, they were either designed and afterwards 
 manufactured for special customers, or, finding little or no sale, were swept 
 away as useless. Wedgwood found classic art his best ally; it appealed neither 
 to- narrow predilections nor to particular classes; and since it presented, so far 
 as he could make the materials of his craft subservient to his purpose, the best 
 ideals of truth and beauty, he ministered more widely to the cultivation of taste. 
 Who Mrs. Landre was is now unknown. She seems to have modelled largely 
 for potters; and at times, through the instrumentality of Voyez and others, to 
 have executed unknowingly commissions for Wedgwood. Writing to Bentley, 
 Oct. 3, 1768, he said, “ Voyez tells me the Bas-reliefs will not do in wax, they 
 must be in plaister. What shall I do? I dare not write to Mrs. Landre for 
 him in my own name. Voyez says she is the D —1 at finding out Pirates, & 
 if she once finds me out I shall never be able to get a cast from her. Pray 
 write to her by first post, & tell her that you choose to have the Casts in fine 
 cream colour plaister, & lay a good deal of stress upon the colour & sharpness.” 
 The celebrated Centaur tablet, round and framed, and those of Polyphemus, 
 Marsyas and young Olympus, and Papyrius and his Mother, with some of the 
 busts and statues appear to have been from models by Bacon. 1 “ Cupid 
 reposing,” or, as more generally known, “ The Sleeping Boy,” was 
 modelled by Theodore Parker in October, 1769, from a fine engraving in 
 Maffei, Statue Antic he, plate, 151. In a bill of that date it is quaintly set 
 down a “ A Boy A Couch,” and the price received must have been trivial; as 
 for this and a large statue of Ceres and others of Juno, Prudence, Milton, 
 
 1 He was paid a bill of £9 15J. in July, 1769. The subjects of his work are not given. 
 
 M 
 
42 
 
 IVedgwood and his IVorks . 
 
 Shakespeare, and three “ Doggs,” the sum set down is but £i 45. “ Cupid 
 
 reposing,” or “ Somnus,” as modelled by Parker, was small, not more than 
 3 inches long by 2|; but eventually the figure was re-modelled from a cast by 
 Hoskins, and the size increased. 1 In the original a lion’s head lies under the 
 boy’s left hand. The important tablet of Bacchus and Panther, 11 inches 
 long by 6 high, was modelled for Sir William Hamilton in November, 1772 ; 
 and Cupid shaving his Bow, Marriage of Cupid and Psyche, 16 inches long 
 by uf inches, the Judgment of Paris, Boys playing with a Goat, Cassandra, 
 a fine figure in high relief, from a gem in the cabinet of the King of France ; 
 Diomedes carrying away the Palladium, Dancing nymphs, Centaurs round 
 tablets, Polyphemus, Marsyas and young Olympus, Papyrius and his Mother, 
 Bacchanalian figures, Judgment of Hercules, Death of a Roman Warrior, 
 Bacchanalian Triumphs and Sacrifices, Night and Day, and Meleager and 
 Atalanta killing the Calydonian Boar, were amongst the more important bas- 
 reliefs of this first period. The busts were, as yet, but three ; those of Horace, 
 Cicero, and George II. The small statues and other objects included Neptune, 
 Triton, Polyphemus, Morpheus, Ceres, Infant Hercules with Serpent, Gany- 
 medes from the Florentine Museum, Bacchus from Sansovino, as also a copy 
 from Michael Angelo, five Boys from Fiamingo, and lions, sphynxes and 
 griffins; the two latter as candelabra. The heads of Grecian statesmen, 
 philosophers and poets, in chronological order and copied in the basaltes body 
 from antique medallions and busts, were issued ; as also sixty medals of 
 Roman history from Dassier—these latter were from sulphurs by Tassie; 
 Heads of illustrious Romans, the twelve Caesars, the Popes, the Kings 
 of England, as also those of illustrious Moderns, in basaltes and in polished 
 biscuit with cameo grounds, close this extraordinary list of the fine-art labours 
 of a period covering little more than three years. 
 
 When Wedgwood commenced his career as an artistic potter, most objects 
 of English origin for the adornment of rooms, mantelpieces, window-sills and 
 buffets, were in the rudest possible state. True, the masterpieces of Bow and 
 
 1 The copy in the De La Rue Collection was 15 inches long by 94. inches high; and the per¬ 
 fection of the modelling rendered it equal to the finest sculpture. It was valued by its late owner at 
 the price of £110, but sold for £27. A very inadequate sum; though originally bought of a dealer 
 £ 5 - 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 43 
 
 Chelsea could be obtained by the wealthy ; but generally speaking, a few 
 ill-formed and gaudily coloured figures and groups, after the manner of 
 Dresden and Bow, and a larger number of clumsily fashioned vessels for 
 flowers, were the sole objects which people of ordinary means could find in 
 the shops for the decoration of the rooms in which they passed the majority of 
 their waking hours. But his labours in the course of a very few years changed 
 this dearth in ornamental art to one of beauty, abundance, and variety ; and 
 England became not only conspicuous for the use she made of ornamental 
 and decorative pottery, but for the amount she exported. Wedgwood’s first 
 vases were made in his fine cream-ware body, those in fine biscuit followed. 
 The first he variously decorated with leafage, borders, or other small orna¬ 
 ments ; he then improved their form, and the best were sent to Liverpool to 
 be printed by Green and Sadler, with small views, in black or red, of pastoral 
 and domestic scenes. He had not advanced to a higher stage in vase making 
 than this when he obtained his first commission from Queen Charlotte in the 
 summer of 1765. Writing at this date to his brother he says, “ I shall be 
 very proud of the honour of sending a box of patterns to the Queen—amongst 
 which I intend sending two sets of Vases, cream colour, engine-turn’d, & 
 printed, for which purpose nothing would be more suitable, than some copper 
 plates I have by me. I can adapt the Vases so that the design & they will 
 appear to be made for each other, & intended for Royalty,—nor must you 
 hint to the contrary.” Succeeding these, were vases in biscuit ware with the 
 necks coloured with cobalt to resemble lapis lazuli, with lids and serpent 
 handles. Of the same period were his first trials in basaltes ; and when 
 this class of vases was brought to perfection, nothing could exceed their beauty 
 and antique grace, for they reproduced the finest forms of antiquity, and 
 whether adorned with bas-reliefs, foliage, drapery, festoons, masks or serpent- 
 handles, they have never been surpassed or even approached. Prior to the 
 death of Bentley in November, 1780, the black vases were simpler and much 
 more dependent upon the lathe for ornament than afterwards. Thus, without 
 reversing the vase to see the impressed names, the connoisseur may almost 
 always know the black vases of this fine, though early period of production, by 
 their exquisite smoothness and gloss; as also in some specimens by deadness of 
 colour or unglossiness, and by a peculiar fluting, as though effected by a gouge 
 
44 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 gently applied ; this sometimes spirally, sometimes straight, often combined ; 
 as seen in an example given in the illustrations. More ornament was afterwards 
 introduced and the size increased ; but the black vases, impressed with the 
 joint names of “Wedgwood & Bentley,” must always stand in high favour; 
 and as time increases their rarity, so will their value rise. 
 
 Small vases in mixed bodies from three to five inches in height, were 
 probably amongst Wedgwood’s early ornamental labours ; but it was not till 
 he had built a special vase work at Etruria, that he succeeded in bringing 
 these to perfection, by improving the body, by modelling their forms from the 
 antique, by insuring beauty and fineness of polish, and by a moderate degree 
 of gilding and ornament. We find from his letters to Bentley during 1769 
 that these marbled bodies were not at first produced by the old method of 
 mixing various clays, or as it was technically termed by “slapping,” but chiefly 
 by the hand of the enameller, who, after veining and streaking cream-colour, 
 grey, or stone-colour vases, burnt in his enamels. An able workman super¬ 
 intended these processes, and he moved to and fro between London and 
 Etruria, as occasion required. “ I have reserved my house at Burslem for 
 Mr. Rhodes and his men,” wrote Wedgwood to Bentley in November, 1769, 
 “ it is quite ready for him, and when he comes you shall have Mr. Bakewell ; 
 but we must have some one here to vein and finish the vases, & if Bakewell 
 goes before Mr. Rhodes comes, we have nobody, & that business must stand 
 still the while.” At a later day the crystalline bodies became once more a 
 reality by a mixture of various-coloured clays in the mass. Thus Wedgwood 
 writes again, January 27, 1776, “ I observe what you say about Pebble vases 
 in general, & take the benefit of them as I proceed in this branch ; but the 
 mixtures & colours too, after all the attention we give them, are liable to so 
 many accidents and alterations from the workmen’s unhandiness & want of 
 ideas. From the uncertainty in firing 8 c c. &c., which accidents we cannot com¬ 
 mand, that much will at last depend on the Chapter of Accidents. For instance, 
 when the Clays are perfectly mixt to produce a wildness 8 c extravaganza in 
 the Pebble, if the workman gives the batts a twist edgways instead of keeping 
 them flatt when he puts them into the mould, a lin of stringiness is produced, 
 which shows the Pott instead of finely variegated. Again—If we mean the 
 general complexion of the pebble to be light, & they meet with a heavy 
 
Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 45 
 
 fire in the biskit oven, the stronger colours & middle tints will be many 
 shades darker than intended, & the light colours in the mixtures rather 
 lighter, which annihilates all the middle tints, & produces a disgusting tawdry 
 harshness. I could mention many more accidents we poor potters are liable 
 to.” Thus there are two classes of these vases : an early and a later. The first 
 are generally large, and often of fine form. They are to be distinguished by an 
 interior inspection, when the body will be seen to be a dull cream colour, and 
 outside, the painted streaks whether spiral or horizontal, cover the oviform or 
 other shape, in unbroken regularity. On the other hand, the vases of really 
 mixed bodies and of a higher period of production, show interiors like the 
 exteriors, though dull and unburnished ; and from having been formed in 
 moulds, the edges, where the moulds have met beneath the ansae, have necessarily 
 broken laminations of line and colour. Yet, often when these later vases have 
 lids, they will be seen to be of cream colour, as though it had been found easier 
 to form them in the simpler body, and then paint in enamel colours. The 
 borders, edgings, and other ornamental parts seem to have been first formed of 
 a soft white substance laid in grooves, produced by the lathe, and on this the 
 gilt was laid. Sir William Hamilton and other critics greatly objected to this 
 gilding ; and in its gaudy newness this criticism was undoubtedly correct, but 
 now that time has toned down its brightness, it adds, when not too great in 
 amount, a singular softness and beauty of effect to the varying colours sur¬ 
 rounding it. The Falcke collection is particularly rich in medium sized vases 
 of this later and best period ; the forms being good, the polish equal to that of 
 the minerals imitated, the substances throughout of one character, and the 
 broken lines of colour and lamination to be readily distinguished beneath the 
 handles. The Mayer collection of these vases is fine ; the forms of many 
 specimens are very beautiful and the decoration tasteful, but painted vases 
 predominate. As in all his other works, Wedgwood aimed at and effected a 
 great variety in the colour and veining of these beautiful ornaments. He imi¬ 
 tated black marble, and he produced others he called “ Holy Door” and “ Jaune 
 Antique the first a light puce or mauve colour mixed with gilt and white, the 
 second a rich saffron colour mixed with black. The mixtures of his imitated 
 serpentine are green and grey; agate, brown and yellow; verde antique, dark 
 green, grey and black; green jasper, green and grey; grey granite, white and 
 
 N 
 
46 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 black ; red porphyry, white or red ; and many others. From an early period, 
 and even when variation in substance had been substituted for variegated 
 painting, this veining and streaking in enamel colours was found useful in 
 changing the appearance of old stocks not otherwise saleable. Thus, when the 
 cream-ware vases fell out of fashion, they were, when their forms were 
 sufficiently good, placed in the enamel painter’s hand for veining ; and thus 
 changed, were soon disposed of. In 1769 and after, the demand for vases 
 became so great, that to meet it, vases of the old stocks were mounted on 
 different plinths, sometimes even wooden ones, stopped, retouched, polished 
 and changed by various processes. Two years prior to this, namely, in May, 
 1767, Wedgwood wrote to Bentley, “ Vases sell too, even in the rude state they 
 are now ; for such they appear to me, when I take a view of what may be 
 done.” Again, and later, he says, writing from London to Bentley, who was 
 temporarily at Burslem, “ Let all the hands that can be spared & can work 
 at vases be employed on them, for two reasons, that they may be bringing up 
 for Etruria, & the great demand may not be baulked. I could sell ^50 or 
 ^Fioo worth per day if I had them. Let there be some of the jar kind made 
 as large as you can make them ; some of them may have longer necks, dolphin 
 handles, leafage at bottom, and the largest drapery festoons round the 
 shoulders.” Vases began to be exported ; to Holland especially, and the 
 demand increased. Fashion had declared in favour of these beautiful wares ; 
 and the desire to obtain them drew every lord and lady to Newport Street. 
 “ Mrs. Byerley,” wrote Wedgwood to Bentley in May, 1769, “ is just returned 
 from London, & brings a strange acc 1 of their goings on in Newport Street. 
 
 ‘ No geting to the door for coaches, nor into the rooms for Ladies & Gent m ; 
 & Vases,’ she says, ‘ are all the rage.’ We must endeavour to gratify this 
 universal passion , though we shall be sadly short of hands for a year or two ; 
 train’d ones, I mean ; raw materials I could have plenty for the next year, & 
 I intend to ingage a good quantity to choose out of.” This training & 
 creating, as it were, his workmen, was one of Wedgwood’s greatest difficulties : 
 in the beginning especially. “In my first essays on Vases, he wrote to 
 Bentley, January 10, 1770, “ I had many things to teach myself & everything 
 to teach the workmen ; they require much instruction, for they have not the 
 least idea of beauty or proportion.” 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 47 
 
 The basaltes vases were occasionally decorated with white reliefs, princi¬ 
 pally foliage, drapery, and festoons; and at a later day vases made in black 
 jasper, with bas-reliefs of classical subjects in white jasper, were amongst 
 the most exquisite of Wedgwood’s fine-art productions; as the superb vases 
 from the Falcke collection given in the Illustrations will testify. Wedgwood 
 also at this early period, and after, bronzed his black ware, and for this process, 
 as also for “a peculiar species of Encaustic painting in various colours, in 
 imitation of the ancient Etruscan and Roman earthenware,” he took out a 
 Patent in November, 1769. His first pair of Etruscan bronze vases was pro¬ 
 duced in the autumn of the previous year, August, 1768, and were sent as a 
 present to the sister of Mr. Tarleton, the Member for Liverpool; a propitiatory 
 offering for the good of the Trent and Mersey Navigation ; but more than a 
 year elapsed before the bronzing as an application burnt in, and thus homoge¬ 
 neous with the body, was brought to perfection. This ware seems never to 
 have reached the perfection of the basaltes polished and unpolished ; or to have 
 been manufactured in anything like the same quantity. It was not so much 
 admired and not so popular; thus examples are now comparatively rare. A 
 few vases, statuettes and busts are all we know of; one of the latter is in the 
 Falcke collection. 
 
 On the other hand the encaustic painted vases in imitation of the best 
 period of Grecian and Etruscan art were produced on a considerable scale, 
 and had a wide popularity; very many choice examples, in all the finest 
 forms have descended to our time. It is a curious fact that more of this class 
 of ware and that of the basaltes, in the shape of various fine ornaments, remain 
 in the hands of the original purchasers, than any of the other classes. ' 
 Bought direct from the manufacturer by the titled and wealthy for the 
 adornment of galleries, libraries, halls and staircases, these beautiful objects 
 have, in very many fortunate cases, never changed hands; but remain where 
 they were originally placed, as testimony to the good taste of their purchasers, 
 and as proof of the condition of the fine arts of the country during the last 
 half of the eighteenth century. 
 
 By seeking out the best illustrated works of art, and from his eager habit 
 of visiting collections, Wedgwood, at an early date of his manufacturing 
 career, must have become well acquainted with the forms, colour and decora- 
 
4 8 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 tion of antique vases. But his first impulse towards their imitation seems to 
 have been derived from the work of Count de Caylus, and from Lord Cathcart, 
 for whom he executed several commissions in useful ware as early as 1766. 
 Lord Cathcart lent him the work of Caylus, and subsequently intrusted some 
 of the proof sheets of Sir William Hamilton’s—then Mr. Hamilton—great 
 work on vases ; two volumes of which, in folio, were published in 1766, and 
 two more in 1767. Sir Watkin Williams Wynne subsequently presented 
 Wedgwood with the volumes themselves; and having through the great 
 kindness of Lord Cathcart been intrusted with some commissions for Sir 
 William Hamilton, a correspondence followed, which, at this period of 
 experiment, proved of the utmost value to the potter. He had also for his 
 guide some splendid Etruscan vases lately purchased by the Duke of 
 Northumberland for his cabinet; thus incited he was eager to begin what 
 he aptly styled “ his great work.” 
 
 De Caylus, aided by the chemical knowledge of a French physician, and 
 by the observations of Pliny, made various experiments as to the ancient 
 methods of encaustic painting; and he chiefly effected his purpose by covering 
 canvas, wood and similar surfaces with wax in which were incorporated various 
 tints and colours. But Wedgwood, whilst he understood that the Greeks and 
 Etruscans painted their vases in fresco, and whilst the clay was soft, does not 
 seem to have analysed their colours, or sought to recover their methods of 
 application, but deriving his various shades of red and black from the oxides 
 of iron, followed his own plan of applying them ; his aim being, that the 
 vehicles incorporated with the colours as a flux should not, when fired, leave a 
 glassy or enamelled surface ; but sinking into the body to which they were 
 applied, appear as a part of it, though differing in hue. That he excelled or 
 even approached the beauty of the antique vases is a matter of divided opinion. 
 High officials, curators of museums and classical purists will scarcely admit 
 that his Etruscan painted vases have any merit. They complain of weight, 
 colouring, decoration and form. In weight certainly they do not approach the 
 excellence of antique examples, nor is the colouring so fine; but he copied the 
 purest forms, and in many instances repeated the decoration to even the 
 minutest touches. His Patent shows that some of his processes were exactly 
 similar to those of the classic potters—as that of laying on some of the colours. 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 49 
 
 But he fired his ware once, then had it painted, and then fired again in the 
 enamel kiln as many times as the colours required ; a process, if we may judge, 
 wholly different to that of the ancients. His body—if less light in weight— 
 far excelled in durability anything produced by the classic potters; and he 
 himself was of opinion that the encaustic colours he invented not only 
 completely imitated the paintings upon the Etruscan vases, “but,” as he 
 says in the first edition of his Catalogue, and subsequently in others, “ did 
 much more by giving to the beauty of design the advantages of light and 
 shade in various colours.” To this he adds “ The figures upon these Vases 
 are taken chiefly from Gems, antique Paintings, & Bas-reliefs; & are executed 
 by the best Hands we can employ. We have spared no Attention to render 
 them Ornaments fit for the noblest Apartments; & considering the great 
 Expense & Risque attending such delicate Subjects, we believe the Prices are 
 much lower than those of any other Ornaments in Europe, that can with 
 Propriety admit of any Comparison with them.” 
 
 With all but those classical purists, who allow merit to no work of art, 
 unless covered by the glory of two thousand years, Wedgwood’s reproductions 
 of antique vases are highly considered ; and were so in his own day. It was 
 difficult to meet the great demand; and the taste for these beautiful objects 
 saw no decay so long as he lived. Sir William Hamilton’s opinion was 
 greatly in their favour. “ Your Etruscan ware,” he wrote from Naples to 
 Wedgwood and Bentley, March 2, 1773, “is universally admired. I hope 
 you continue to meet with all the encouragement you deserve. I will surely 
 send you some drawings of fine shaped Vases soon. Continue to be very 
 attentive to the simplicity & Ellegance of the forms, which is the chief article— 
 & you can not consult the originals in the Museum too often.” 1 On one 
 occasion when complaints were made that the encaustic painted vases were not 
 produced in sufficient numbers, Bentley wrote thus gracefully to the head 
 clerk in Newport Street, “ When your Friends wonder why you have not 
 more and oftener, please to give them to understand that it is very difficult 
 to make fine and perfect things of any kind. How often does our great 
 
 1 From an original letter of Sir W. Hamilton, presented to the writer by J. A. Tulk, Esq., and 
 never before published. 
 
 O 
 
50 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 Mistress Nature Fail, even in the finest Order of her Productions. The 
 angelic Sex are not all perfectly straight, delicate & beautiful, no more than 
 our Vases ; & you may contrive to edge in the Natural Inference that every 
 good Thing deserves a good Price!' 
 
 The encaustic painting was applied to an immense variety of ornaments 
 besides vases. Long and oval tablets called “ Herculaneum pictures,” ink- 
 stands, and bouquetiers, or flower pots, were amongst the number. Encaustic 
 painting in black was also applied to red bodies—in all variations of form— 
 though not so frequently ; and at a later period very many beautiful reliefs 
 in a dull red were applied to black bodies ; and black to red in the same 
 manner. Wedgwood also tried various imitations of the beautiful red wares 
 of antiquity; but probably from want of time to carry on his experiments, he 
 did not even approximate thereto. In so far as weight went, he occasionally 
 approached ancient examples, as in the case of a large pair of what were 
 probably intended for wine coolers, in the Sibson Collection. They are nicely 
 formed, prettily impressed with vintage and other ornament, their weight is 
 light, but the colour has a washed-out appearance, very unlike that of the 
 wares of Samos, Saguntum, and Aretium. More commonly his reds are too 
 ruddy; too kindred to a common brick. He made various trials, and acting 
 upon the advice of Sir William Hamilton, the red was tinged with yellow, but 
 the results were still unsatisfactory. Bentley was constantly urging him to 
 try for the fine coral red and beautiful glaze of antiquity, but Wedgwood could 
 find no time. At length he wrote to Bentley : “ I wish you to fix upon one 
 of the Bronze like colours for the cheap cabinets, as we shall never be able 
 to make the Rosso antico , otherwise than to put you in mind of a red Pot 
 Teapot.” His son, Josiah Wedgwood, was far more successful in the manu¬ 
 facture of red ware of good form and colour, as he early in the present century 
 made some admirable imitations of Roman ware, found in the tumuli of the 
 Wiltshire Downs, for Sir Richard Colt Hoare, the eminent antiquary. Modern 
 trials have been even more successful; though the production of beautiful 
 ornaments with the colour and glaze of true Samian ware, is an object yet to 
 be hoped for and attained ; more particularly as our country holds clays of the 
 finest quality for purposes of this character. 
 
 thus Wedgwood, like all other men who carry forward the arts and 
 
IVedgwood and his Works. 
 
 5i 
 
 sciences of their country, failed in some things and greatly succeeded in others ; 
 and hindrances and annoyances often retarded his work. From the first he 
 was surrounded by a host of unscrupulous pirates, who, manufacturers like 
 himself, not only bribed his workmen to betray the secrets of their master’s 
 workshops, but also bought the earliest specimens they could of his best 
 productions, and then closely imitated them in inferior bodies, designs, and 
 colouring. The chief delinquent, at this period, was a manufacturer named 
 Palmer, who first in alliance and afterwards in partnership with a London 
 dealer named Neale, left no artifice untried by which he could rob Wedgwood 
 of the just reward of his long and anxious labours. Palmer was assisted in 
 these nefarious practices by a clever workman and modeller named John 
 Voyez. Wedgwood hired him in the spring of 1768 for a term of three years, 
 and needing his services at Burslem, had a house made ready for him, and 
 otherwise most generously assisted him. But, in course of a few months, 
 he had left his excellent master; and committing some glaring offence, was 
 publicly whipped and then imprisoned. The nature of his offence does not 
 appear. Wedgwood, in order to clear his hands of him, paid two years’ 
 stipulated salary, thinking it well to be rid of him at any price. So soon as 
 Voyez was released from prison he took service with Palmer, and made black 
 and bronze vases, as also seals, from Wedgwood’s designs. After being cast 
 out from Palmer’s, he served other manufacturers for brief periods. At length 
 he began business for himself; and making seals, on which he forged Wedg¬ 
 wood and Bentley’s names, traversed—at intervals—the country with them ; 
 forcing sales by auction in markets and at fairs, when he could not dispose 
 of his goods by more legitimate methods. Bankrupt, wretched and miserable 
 —and travelling in a cart with his wife and children—he fades from human 
 view, and probably died, as he had lived, a vagabond and an outcast. At one 
 time it was thought that but one example remained of his skill in ornamental 
 pottery, and that nothing more than a jug of ordinary quality decorated with 
 two figures in coloured relief; but recently it has been discovered that Voyez 
 could achieve far more artistic work. In the collection of Sir William Hol- 
 bourne of Bath, is one of the vases Voyez made for Palmer. It is in basaltes, 
 22 inches in height, of very elegant form, with fine reliefs on each side of 
 “ Prometheus bound to a rock and attacked by an eagle.” The handles are 
 
52 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 female terminal figures (now damaged), and beneath one portion of the relief 
 is marked “ J. Voyez. sculpebat. 1769,” and on the square plinth is marked 
 “ H Palmer, Hanley, Staffordshire.” He also imitated Wedgwood’s variegated 
 bodies; two oviform vases marked with his name, with white leaf ornaments 
 in relief on the lower part and white handles, being in Mr. Hailstone’s 
 collection. Voyez’s career conspicuously illustrates the short-sightedness of 
 crime and treachery. Had he remained faithful to his excellent and generous 
 master, he might soon have risen to the post of chief modeller at Etruria, and 
 left works to posterity which would have been associated with his name. 
 
 Whilst these were Wedgwood’s ceaseless labours in ornamental art, he 
 was busy with the celebrated table, dessert, and tea and breakfast services for 
 the Empress of Russia; and thus known as the “ Russian Service.” It was 
 partly for facilitating its enamelling that the painters were removed from 
 Newport Street to Chelsea. Prior to this vast order, W.edgwood had made 
 and sent a small service to St. Petersburg for the Empress ; and now, in 
 imitation of those German princes whose favours were lavished on the porcelain 
 works of Dresden and Berlin, she commissioned, through one of her nobles, 
 Mr. Baxter the English Consul at St. Petersburg, then in England, to 
 negotiate with Wedgwood and Bentley the business relative to this great 
 commission. Each piece of these services was to be enamelled with a different 
 view of British scenery; and as they were for use at the “ Grenouillibre,” 
 a place so called, and forming part of the palace of Tzarsko-selo, near St. 
 Petersburg, a child and frog were to be painted on the under-side as a 
 distinctive mark. The child was subsequently omitted; and the frog alone 
 appeared, painted green within a shield. 
 
 As fast as the various articles were manufactured at Etruria, they were 
 sent to Chelsea to be painted ; great numbers of the best enamel painters of 
 the day, including women, being engaged upon the work. It was begun in 
 April, 1773, and finished in the summer of 1774. The chief difficulty was in 
 obtaining a sufficient variety of views, though the nobility and gentry rendered 
 most generous aid ; two or more landscape painters were employed, prints 
 bought in great profusion, and the camera obscura lent assistance. All the 
 forms for tureens, glaciers, centre-pieces, fruit baskets, and many other articles 
 were from new designs. Of these Wedgwood himself modelled a considerable 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 53 
 
 number; and as a knot for the lids of the glaciers, he designed the figure of a 
 little old woman seated cloaked, as expressive of cold ; and for a long period 
 this remained in use as a knot to the lids of teapots, vases, and other objects 
 of ornamental pottery. 
 
 The business premises in Newport Street, though of considerable extent, 
 had soon become much too small for the transactions of a trade which in all 
 its departments grew day by day. Both Wedgwood and his partner looked 
 about them therefore, for a more commodious place of business. And after 
 some negotiations with respect to one of the large houses which, at that date, 
 were being built in the Adelphi by the brothers Adams the architects, they 
 arranged for the lease of a large house in Greek Street, Soho, then a fashionable 
 quarter, and to which was attached a very large room, till recently used as a 
 school and dissecting room by the medical professors residing in the neigh¬ 
 bourhood. These premises passed into the occupation of Wedgwood and 
 Bentley at the close of 1773; in April, 1774, the show rooms, though yet 
 incomplete, were opened, and in July Bentley, who had recently married again, 
 removed hither with his wife and household from Chelsea. 
 
 B'or a month, June, 1774, a portion of the Russian service was on show in 
 Greek Street, and it was visited by the Royal family and the whole fashionable 
 world. Mrs. Delany in one of her letters, June 7, 1774, refers thus to her 
 visit to the new show-rooms : “ I am just returned from viewing the Wedg¬ 
 wood-ware that is to be sent to the Empress of Russia. It consists, I believe, 
 of as many pieces as there are days in the year. They are displayed at a house 
 in Greek Street, ‘ Soho,’ called ‘ Bortland House,’ 1 there are three rooms below 
 & two above filled with it, laid out on tables, everything that can be wanted to 
 serve a dinner; the ground, the common ware pale brimstone, the drawings in 
 purple, the borders a wreath of leaves, the middle of each piece a particular 
 view of all the remarkable places in the King’s dominions neatly executed. 
 I suppose it will come to a princely price ; it is well for the manufacturer 
 which I am glad of, as his ingenuity and industry deserve encouragement.” 
 
 These services, which were transmitted to Russia during the autumn of 
 
 1 It was so named by Wedgwood from its situation on the Portland estate. The Duke was a 
 generous patron. 
 
 P 
 
54 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 1774, contained 952 pieces. The Empress paid ^3,000 for them through her 
 Consul, but the order proved ultimately a loss to the partners. It aided, 
 however, in giving Wedgwood and Bentley an European reputation, and led to 
 further royal and noble orders. The Empress herself was warm in her praise 
 and conveyed her thanks, not only through the English Consul, but by her own 
 Ambassador. She enshrined the service in the most fantastic, and yet most 
 beautiful of her country retreats, and showed it there to Lord Malmesbury in 
 1779. At the present date not a vestige seems to remain. A friend who often 
 travels to Russia, and has business relations with those connected with the 
 Court, has caused inquiries to be made, but nothing is now known of the 
 celebrated services. They were probably stolen piecemeal by Catherine’s 
 worthless and countless favourites, and so perished. The only relics, an 
 exquisite cup and saucer, are in the Mayer Collection, Liverpool, and engraved 
 in the “Life of Wedgwood,” vol. ii. pp. 296, 297. 
 
 Wedgwood was at this date the father of five children, three sons and two 
 daughters. Another son had died in infancy, at the date of the amputation of 
 is leg; and two daughters were born subsequently, the last in 1778. He had 
 suffered much and long anxiety on account of his wife’s frequent illnesses ; and 
 he was himself at one period greatly afflicted with a disorder in his eyes, which 
 threatened blindness and much unnerved him. 
 
 The second edition of the Catalogue was issued in 1774. It contains 
 nearly 150 new cameos and a large number of designs in intaglio for seals. 
 The bas-reliefs, tablets and medallions are increased by eleven, the subjects 
 being of no great account, and probably designed by no higher artists than 
 Parker and Mrs. Landre. The biographical and historical suites of medallions 
 are enriched by some valuable additions. Twenty-four fine busts of various 
 sizes are added ; and the list of small statues and animals includes Bacchus, 
 a Fawn, the Venus de Medici, elephants, a vestal, Solon, Minerva, Palladio 
 and Zingara. 
 
 The fourth edition of the Catalogue was published in 1777 ,* and covering, 
 in the additions to its lists, a period of only three years, shows an immense 
 amount of artistic labour of high quality. Its “ Conclusion” first enunciates 
 
 The third edition was merely a translation of the second edition into French. 
 
 1 
 
Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 55 
 
 those sound principles on which Wedgwood, as also Bentley, had based their 
 conception of the necessities of ornamental art. Then, as now, there was a cry 
 for cheapness rather than excellence. “ The proprietors of this manufactory,” 
 they say, “ hope it will appear to all those who may have been pleased to attend 
 to its progress, that ever since its establishment, it has been continually im¬ 
 proving, both in the variety and perfection of its productions.—A competition 
 for cheapness and not for excellence is the most frequent and certain cause 
 of the rapid decay and entire destruction of arts and manufactures. The 
 desire of selling much in a little time, without respect to the taste and quality 
 of the goods, leads manufacturers and merchants to ruin the reputation of 
 the articles which they manufacture and deal in ; and whilst those who buy, 
 for the sake of a fallacious saving, prefer mediocrity to excellence, it will be 
 impossible for manufacturers either to improve or keep up the quality of 
 their works.—This observation is equally applicable to manufactures, and 
 to the productions of the fine arts ; but the degradation is more fatal to 
 the latter than the former : for though an ordinary piece of goods for 
 common use is always dearer than the best of the kind, yet an ordinary 
 and tasteless piece of ornament is not only dear at any price, but absolutely 
 useless and ridiculous. —All works of art must bear a price in proportion to 
 the taste, the skill, the time, the expense and the risk attending the inven¬ 
 tion and execution of them. . . . Beautiful forms and compositions are not to 
 be made by chance ; and they never were made, nor can be made in any kind at 
 a small expense; but the proprietors of this manufactory have the satisfaction 
 of knowing by a careful comparison that the prices of many of their ornaments 
 are much lower , and all of them as low , as those of any other ornamental works 
 in Europe ) of equal quality and risk, notwithstanding the high price of labour 
 in England; and they are determined rather to give up the making of any 
 article than to degrade it. They do not manufacture for those who estimate 
 works of ornament by their magnitude , and who would buy pictures at so much 
 a foot: they have been happy in the encouragement and support of many illus¬ 
 trious persons, who judge of the works of art by better principles ; and so 
 long as they have the honour of being thus patronized, they will endeavour to 
 support and improve the quality and taste of their manufactures.” This last noble 
 paragraph cannot be too often reprinted, for till conscientiousness in his art, as 
 
5 6 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 in the old Greek times, be the aim of the artist, perfection and ideal truth will 
 never be attained ; nor will public taste meet this ideal truth till cultivation has 
 begot conscientiousness on the part of those who would be patrons, be their 
 rank what it may. 
 
 Two years prior to the issue of this Catalogue, Flaxman had begun his 
 labours for Wedgwood. For this purpose he was sought out by Bentley, who, 
 as it appears, had conceived a high idea of the young sculptor’s talents. Wedg¬ 
 wood already knew him, if not in person, at least by fame. More probably the 
 former, as he was in the habit of visiting every cast shop in London ; particu¬ 
 larly those in which subjects from the antique were chiefly sold. Flaxman’s 
 father dealt in a superior class of work, and admitted but few designs into his 
 collection which were not severely Greek. He may thus have seen the studious 
 and delicate youth bent over his modelling tools or his books in his visits to 
 the elder Flaxman’s shop, which at that date was in the Strand, opposite 
 Durham Yard. Or he may have listened to the gossip of Academicians and 
 artists in respect to the award of the gold medal which Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 who knew nothing of sculpture, so unjustly presented to Engleheart instead of 
 Flaxman. Conceit was no failing of the great artist, but he was proud, and 
 thought himself injuriously treated. However derived, Wedgwood’s first im¬ 
 pression of Flaxman had not been favourable. “ I am glad,” he wrote to 
 Bentley, January 14, 1775, “that you have met with a modeller, & that Flax¬ 
 man is so valuable an artist. It is but a few years since he was a most supreme 
 Coxcomb, but a little more experience may have cured him of this foible.” The 
 next day he wrote again of the young sculptor. “ Perhaps Flaxman can model 
 you a good Tablet for a chimney-piece—you know we have not one of a proper 
 size. It should be modelled upon a piece of ground glass or marble, & you 
 may allow an inch at 8 for shrinking. I need not tell you that the Figures 
 should be open, & managed properly for a coloured ground. What do you 
 think of Vases of our fine blue body with white laurel festoons, medallions, 
 tvc., or for Grecian painting?” Till the July succeeding we hear nothing fur¬ 
 ther of Flaxman from Wedgwood’s letters ; but a bill still preserved shows 
 that he had in the interval modelled on his father’s account the designs for 
 a pair of vases with triton and satyr handles 1 —an antique vase sculptured 
 
 Figured, “ Life of Wedgwood,” vol. ii. p. 387. 
 
 1 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 57 
 
 with figures, bas-reliefs of Melpomone, Thalia, Terpsichore, Euterpe, Sappho, 
 Apollo, Hercules and the Lion, Hercules and the Boar, Hercules and Cer¬ 
 berus, Bacchus and Ariadne, Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Justice, Hope, and four 
 bas-reliefs of the Seasons. In the July following he models some portraits 
 for cameos ; and a few days later Wedgwood, in another of his letters, 
 suggests to Bentley some further work for him. “ Suppose,” he writes, “ you 
 were to employ Mr. Flaxman to model some figures. They would do for 
 vases, inlaying, &c. We have nobody here that can do them.” As autumn 
 sets in, the young sculptor is busy with the portraits of Sir Joseph Banks— 
 then Mr. Banks, and Dr. Solander; and of these and other things Wedgwood 
 writes to Bentley, “ I wish you to see Mr. Flaxman before you leave London 
 & if you could prevail upon him to finish Mr. Banks & Dr. Solander, they 
 would be an acquisition to us, & as we shall now make with tolerable cer¬ 
 tainty any moderate sized bas-reliefs of the composition sent you last in a 
 Conqueror’s Province & companion, I submit it to you whether we should 
 not have some of the finest things that can be modelled, & originals which 
 have not been hackney’d in Wax & Plaister for a century past; & if we think 
 we should, would it not be saving time to set Mr. Flaxman upon some busi¬ 
 ness before you leave him ? Mr. Grenville you know gave us permission to 
 copy or mould from any of the fine things in his possession. He has a vase or 
 two in town full of Bas-relief figures, which would do for us charmingly. If 
 we had a number of such figures as would compose into Bacchanalian pro¬ 
 cessions, Sacrifices, See., we could make many wonderful things from them.” 
 
 In January, 1776, Flaxman was at work upon large bas-reliefs for chim¬ 
 ney-pieces, and a little later a commission was given to him for a few Greek 
 heads. It was at this date that Wedgwood styled him the “ Genius of Sculp¬ 
 ture,” and it is probable that Flaxman had raised his terms for modelling, for 
 the former restricted his commissions on account of cost. Wedgwood began 
 now to form his moulds in clay, which, as he said, “ made them everlasting 
 but as the firing reduced them a full size, the sculptor had to increase the size 
 of his models in proportion. He had in hand at this date, June 19, 1776, the 
 model for the tablet of Silenus and Boys, the heads of Julius Caesar, Pan, and 
 Syrinx, the figures of Day and of two Bacchanals. Later in the same year he 
 was at work upon a draped female figure holding a cornucopia under her, and 
 
 o 
 
53 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 also those of Plenty and Medea. The six Muses followed, as also a new set of 
 models of the English poets taken from the finest prints. 
 
 The number of new bas-reliefs, tablets, and medallions in this Catalogue of 
 1777 is about eighty-one, and of these quite thirty were from designs modelled 
 by Flaxman. Wedgwood had now perfected, or nearly so, his jasper body, 
 both in large and small pieces ; the ground and relief in some cases being alike 
 white, in others the ground being a beautiful blue, the relief only white. 
 Writing to Bentley in relation to some Greek heads for which Flaxman had 
 supplied the models, he said, “We have sent a complete set of the Greek 
 heads in white, with gilt frames. Some of the same (but not a complete set), 
 with blue grounds. Some Anthonies & Cleopatrias very fine, & a few bas- 
 reliefs, all of which I wish you to look at before they go into the Rooms. The 
 blue grounds are out of the last kiln & the Cleopatrias, both of which are the 
 finest things imaginable. It really hurts me to think of parting with these 
 Gems, the fruit of twenty years’ toil, for the trifle I fear we must do, to make a 
 business worth our notice of it.” In relation to the Sacrifice to Pan and its 
 companion tablets, which were in the white body, he adds, elsewhere, “ The 
 most exquisite things I ever saw. Pray examine the texture, the surface, & 
 the workmanship with y 1 ' glass, & then if you can find in y r heart to sell them, 
 set what prices upon them you please, but it will be really a sin & a shame to 
 part with them for 155. a pair.” 
 
 This was a period of extraordinary activity, for besides these thirty-one 
 tablets and medallions, Flaxman modelled various designs for cameos, and 
 some few busts, as also various beautiful forms for reproduction in cream- 
 colour and other bodies ; and these in addition to works he prepared on his 
 own account for exhibition in the Royal Academy. The number of new cameos 
 added to the list was forty-seven, with seventy-four intaglios, and the new por¬ 
 trait medallions of various kinds were just a hundred. A very large number 
 of casts were bought from Grant and Hoskins ; and the latter, with Mrs. 
 Landre, and Stephan, were otherwise much employed in modelling designs. 
 
 Bentley and his wife not finding the air of the town agree with them, and 
 more room being required for the constantly increasing body of artists and 
 workmen, they removed in 1777 1 ° a pleasant country-house at Turnham 
 Green. I he chief inducement for choosing this neighbourhood seems to have 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 59 
 
 been that Bentley’s friend, Ralph Griffiths, the editor of the “ Monthly 
 Review,” lived there, and even carried on, in some premises attached to his 
 dwelling-house, the printing of various publications. Otherwise, at that date 
 especially, Turnham Green had little to recommend it. The soil was clay, the 
 land comparatively flat, and the roads dangerous from footpads and highway¬ 
 men. Wedgwood never liked the place ; but when in town he visited it, and 
 greatly enjoyed the warm hospitality of his friends. Bentley lived in excellent 
 style, travelling to Greek Street whenever necessary in his chariot and pair. 
 
 Wedgwood made his first trials for cane and bamboo coloured wares in 
 1777, but some years elapsed before they were brought to perfection. Ink- 
 stands of all kinds, both plain and ornamental, were now produced in large 
 numbers ; and mortars are first mentioned in 1779, though Wedgwood had 
 long previously been making experiments on bodies intended to be impervious 
 to heat and pressure, and acids. He generously supplied Dr. Priestley with 
 all the retorts, crucibles, and other vessels necessary to elaborate researches in 
 chemistry; and by degrees a great trade was opened with Manchester and 
 other manufacturing towns in mortars and other vessels used in the new pro¬ 
 cesses of bleaching linen and cotton goods by chlorine. 
 
 The two years succeeding 1777 were marked by no less activity in the 
 production of the finest objects in ornamental pottery. To this period belongs 
 Flaxman’s designs of the Apotheosis of Homer, An Offering to Flora, the 
 Nine Muses complete, the Muses with Apollo, in two pieces, for friezes to 
 chimney-pieces, with the Apotheosis of Homer for the tablet; the Dancing 
 Hours, Triumph of Love, Sacrifice to Love, Triumph of Venus, Triumph of 
 Bacchus and Ariadne, Young Hercules, Bacchus with an Urn and Grapes ; 
 some groups of boys, and the Four Seasons in separate pieces. To the beauty 
 of the more celebrated of these compositions, our Illustrations testify. 
 The idea of the Apotheosis of Homer, Flaxman derived from some print or 
 model of the original bas-relief, which at that date formed part of the original 
 collection in the Colonna Palace at Rome. It is now included in our national 
 treasures; having been purchased for the British Museum in 1819. But the 
 treatment this extremely fine bas-relief received, created, as it were, a perfectly 
 original work of art. The tablet of the Nine Muses was also suggested by a 
 bas-relief from a sarcophagus in the Capitoline Museum ; and Young Hercules 
 
6o 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 killing a Lion was from the same source, though individualized, and, as it 
 were, recreated by the hand of genius. We also see by Wedgwood’s letters 
 that there was an extremely fine “ Homer & Hesiod ” tablet, but the Cata¬ 
 logues do not record it. The cameos and intaglios were added to, but many 
 changes of subjects were afterwards introduced. To the lists of portrait 
 medallions, busts, and small figures, were some valuable additions. 
 
 But just as these splendid successes in ornamental art were crowning the 
 arduous labours of many years, Thomas Bentley died on Sunday, November 26, 
 1780, from some sudden and rapid disorder; probably gout, to which he was 
 subject. There was not even time to summon Wedgwood to his death-bed ; 
 though, three days after, Nov. 29, he was on his way to Turnham Green, and 
 on the 2nd of December he attended the funeral. Bentley was buried in 
 a vault within Chiswick Church ; and at no late date afterwards a handsome 
 marble monument by Scheemakers, the sculptor, was erected to his memory. 
 
 All the letters and papers of 1780 have apparently perished ; we therefore 
 know nothing of his illness, of when the friends met last, or what were 
 Wedgwood’s feelings on the occasion. That he mourned his loss, and felt 
 that it was in some senses irreparable, there can be no doubt. When we come 
 next upon his handwriting it has changed in a marked degree; its manly 
 vigour is gone, and the signs of impaired health and premature age are only 
 too apparent. For at least a dozen years Bentley had been his right hand in all 
 business transactions ; and, apart from those connected with the ordinary 
 manufacturing processes at Etruria, he had shared with him every difficulty 
 and anxiety connected with so vast a trade. Bentley was a man of superior 
 education ; though from the evidence afforded by the literary condition of the 
 various Catalogues he was no profound or critical scholar. He was a diplo¬ 
 matist by nature ; and his handsome person and winning address lent power 
 to his exquisite persuasiveness. The show rooms in Newport Street and 
 afterwards, far more, those in Greek Street, became a fashionable lounge. Here 
 Mr. Bentley discussed politics with Members of Parliament; quoted much 
 Latin, perhaps a little Greek, in his converse with pompous college doctors 
 and erudite divines ; and a thousand pretty compliments and flatteries, to say 
 nothing of stray and appropriate lines from the English poets, charmed the ears 
 of rich and titled ladies, and led them often to make costly purchases, if only 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 61 
 
 for the sake of pleasing this graceful and princely gentleman. Bentley went to 
 court with all the newest ornaments, and was almost always honoured by a 
 private interview with the Queen and Princesses, if not the King. He visited 
 the seats of the highest nobility, and made what choice he pleased from the 
 various fine-art collections he found there. He sought out the best artists ; he 
 seems to have pleaded for their generous treatment; and, a man of exquisite 
 taste and judgment in art, he was for ever suggesting that simplicity should 
 be the rule in decoration, and the finest forms of antique grace, whether in 
 vases or in figures, be used for inspiration or for models. Bentley was also 
 an excellent political and critical writer. He wrote articles for the St. James’s 
 “ Chronicle,” and for many years helped his friend Ralph Griffiths to fill the 
 pages of each number of the “ Monthly Review.” 
 
 Such were Bentley’s functions, and admirable and valuable they were in 
 their way. But, as Mr. Byerley said long after, it was Wedgwood, who, seated 
 on the bench whole days at Etruria, was creating the fine forms and beautiful 
 objects, which, when perfect, Bentley, with the grace of a prince, dispersed in 
 the show-rooms in Greek Street. This was the higher function, and markedly 
 so. Even when the greatest of his artists, Flaxman, had done his work, there 
 was still to interpretit in other, and often most difficult materials. “As to 
 the part which belongs to Flaxman,” said Mr. Gladstone in his speech at 
 Burslem, “ there is little difficulty; notwithstanding the distorting influence 
 of fire, the works of that incomparable designer still in great part speak for 
 themselves. To imitate Homer, Hdschylus, or Dante, is scarcely a more 
 arduous task than to imitate the artist by whom they were illustrated. Yet I, 
 for one, cannot accept the doctrine of those who would have us ascribe to 
 Flaxman the whole merit of the character of Wedgwood’s productions, 
 considered as works of art. First, from what we already learn of his earliest 
 efforts, of the labours of his own hands, which evidently indicated an elevated 
 aim, and a force bearing upwards into the region of true plastic Art; as, again 
 from that remarkable incident, when he himself threw the first specimens of 
 the black Etruscan vases, while Bentley turned the lathe. Secondly, because 
 the very same spirit which presided in the production of the Portland or 
 Barberini vase, or of the finest of those purely ornamental plaques, presided 
 also, as the eye still assures us, in the production not only of dejeuners, and 
 
 R 
 
62 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 other articles of luxury intended for the rich, but even of the common wares 
 of the firm. The forms of development were varied, but the whole circle 
 of the manufacture was pervaded by a principle one and the same.” As 
 Mr. Gladstone thus says, Wedgwood possessed in an extraordinary degree an 
 absolute love of the perfect; it pervaded and was the essence of all he wrought 
 and did. Genius, it has been well said, is only another term for unwearied 
 and ceaseless painstaking ; and Wedgwood’s eye was everywhere, his heart in 
 all his labour. He superintended every detail, sat at the bench, instructed at 
 the lathe, overlooked the minutest detail in the business of the modellers; and 
 no duty was too mean or too high for his vigilance and austere control. 
 Every article, be it what it might, which was in the least imperfect, he dashed 
 to pieces with his stick. Slovenliness in workmanship he abhorred, idleness he 
 gravely reproved ; and yet he was the most beloved of masters. The peculiar 
 thud of his cork-leg as he ascended and descended the various staircases of his 
 manufactory was a welcome sound to every ear. 
 
 To remove the impression from the public mind, an impression which 
 seems to have existed to a great extent, that Bentley, by his taste and accom¬ 
 plishments, had been the great moving principle in the production of orna¬ 
 mental works, it was resolved, soon after his death, to have a public sale by 
 auction of all the existing stock, and re-open the rooms in Greek Street, Soho, 
 with a perfectly new assortment of ornamental wares. Accordingly the sale 
 took place at Christie and Ansell’s great room (late that of the Royal Academy), 
 No. 125, Pall Mall, on Monday, December 3, 1781, and eleven following days. 
 The number of lots were 1,200, and consisted entirely of ornamental goods. 
 A few days after the conclusion of the sale, the show-rooms in Newport 
 Street, redecorated and re-arranged, were opened to view; and the public, for 
 the first time, saw that the fine body called jasper could not only be moulded 
 into cameos, small bas-reliefs and medallions, but into splendid vases, into 
 tablets of infinite beauty, and into ornaments of every character. Flaxman 
 had been at work, and his fairest images of beauty shone in white purer than 
 alabaster, and in blue which rivalled that of the summer’s sky. 
 
 The death of Bentley caused great changes at Etruria ; and henceforth we 
 see Wedgwood more as a man of science and a politician than as a potter. 
 He wanted rest and change, and to be busy with other things connected with 
 
Wedgzvood and his Works. 
 
 63 
 
 his great establishment. His eye could not be everywhere, nor his control 
 cover every detail. He, therefore, in the spring succeeding Bentley’s death 
 secured the services of Alexander Chisholm as secretary and superintendent 
 of his laboratory and varied chemical experiments, and in July, 1782, those 
 of Henry Webber as resident modeller at Etruria. Wedgwood thus obtained 
 comparative freedom from the modelling room, the laboratory and the desk. 
 Webber, who was an artist of much ability, had been recommended to him by 
 Sir William Chambers, the architect, and Sir Joshua Reynolds. In Chisholm 
 Wedgwood found for the rest of his life a faithful and attached friend and 
 able assistant, who for thirty years previously had filled a similar post with 
 Dr. Lewis of Kingston-upon-Thames, the author of the “ Commercium- 
 Philosophico-Technicum,” as also other able scientific works. At the time 
 he thus settled down for the rest of his life at Etruria Chisholm was more 
 than fifty years of age. This philosophical and intellectual connexion, which 
 appears to have been a source of great happiness to both, soon showed appro¬ 
 priate results; for between May, 1782, and 1786, Wedgwood contributed no 
 less than three papers to the pages of the “ Philosophical Transactions” on 
 the Pyrometer; an instrument of his own invention for measuring degrees 
 of heat. As a reward for these and other valuable scientific labours he was 
 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1783; his election occurring at the 
 same time as that of Dr. Priestley. At this date he also issued two admirable 
 pamphlets, one entitled “ An Address to the Young Inhabitants of the 
 Pottery,” the other “ An Address to the Workmen in the Pottery on the sub¬ 
 ject of entering into the service of Foreign Manufacturers.” The country, 
 owing to the results of the American war and the stagnation of trade, was 
 in a most distressed condition. Riots had occurred even at Etruria, and 
 journeymen potters were being lured away from their masters by the agents of 
 various foreign manufacturers, chiefly French and American ; and to arrest 
 the tide of these evils, if he could, Wedgwood dictated to his secretary the 
 substance of these excellent literary productions. 
 
 Amongst Webber’s labours at Etruria in modelling were “A Triumph 
 of Mars,” “ A Boy leaning on his Quiver, with Doves,” “ A Cupid drawing 
 his Dart,” “ Hebe,” its companion, “ Apollo and Daphne,” as a beaupot, 
 “Cupid,” a model, “A Sacrifice to Hymen,” a model in bas-relief, and 
 
64 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 “ A Sacrifice to Concordia,” its companion. He also modelled designs for 
 vases, cups, the various decorative parts of chimney-pieces, and other 
 articles. 
 
 From 1779 till 1787, at which date the last and sixth edition of the 
 Catalogue appeared, Flaxman was constantly at work for Wedgwood ; main¬ 
 taining himself by what he thus earned. “A Shell Venus,” “A Bacchante,” 
 “ Cupid and Psyche,” two busts of Rousseau and Sterne, a mould for a bust 
 of Dr. Fothergill, the mould for a tureen, a mould for a bust of Mrs. Siddons, 
 and “A cast of a fragment by Phidias,” were amongst his productions in 1781 
 and 1782. In the latter year he married, and removing from the paternal 
 roof to a small house in Wardour Street, Soho, gathered his models and 
 works of art around him. He also designed groups of children in separate 
 stories, such as the game of blind-man’s buff, playing marbles, and the triumph 
 of Cupid, for the decoration of teapots ; the jasper ware being by this time 
 adapted to many useful purposes. It is pleasant to think that these varied 
 labours aided in securing to Flaxman simple independence and the blessing 
 of an excellent wife, who loved him and appreciated his genius to the full. 
 
 Wedgwood was much mixed up in the commercial contests of the period ; 
 and from a suggestion of his, made to Boulton, sprung the celebrated Chamber 
 of Manufacturers. For this association Flaxman made two drawings of arms. 
 It is questionable if either was ever used, even in the form of a seal. In 1784 
 the exquisite designs for the celebrated set of chessmen were produced, and 
 three years later came the model for the bas-relief of “ Mercury joining the 
 hands of England and France,” designed to commemorate Pitt’s Treaty of 
 Commerce between England and France. The breaking out of the French 
 Revolution annulled at once the Treaty and its liberal principles of navigation 
 and commerce. Wedgwood was a great loser by these changes. Prior to the 
 ratification of the Treaty he sent both to Paris and Bordeaux a splendid 
 assortment of ornamental goods, but his consignees were careless, indifferent, 
 and bad paymasters, and he had reason to regret his generous confidence. 
 Id is Dublin business was also ruined by the active measures he took to defeat 
 the Irish Propositions. 
 
 From July 1787, till the close of his life, Wedgwood was more or less 
 active in the cause of the Abolition of Slavery. He formed one of the 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 65 
 
 Society’s Committee, and attended its meetings whenever he was in town. 
 He contributed largely to its funds, and wrote long letters to those of his 
 friends who had been led to believe that slavery was a good rather than an 
 evil in relation to the human race. Under his directions Hackwood modelled 
 a design of a seal for the society. This design, a slave kneeling in chains, 
 with the motto encircling the figure, “ Am I not a man and a brother,” was 
 highly approved of by the Committee a seal was ordered to be engraved from 
 it; and in 1792 Wedgwood, at his own expense, had a block cut from the 
 design as a frontispiece illustration for one of Clarkson’s pamphlets. His own 
 manufactory also made good use of the drawing. Seals in all the various 
 bodies, and cameos in jasper, the ground white, the relief black, were produced 
 in large quantities, and distributed gratuitously as well as sold. Clarkson 
 himself received more than five hundred seals and cameos ; and as the cause 
 gained popularity, so also did the design of the Slave. As a seal, a ring, a 
 shirt-pin, or coat buttons, gentlemen wore it ; as also ladies in every possible 
 form ; even mounted as pins for their hair. Through his friend Phillips the 
 bookseller, Wedgwood sent some of the cameos to America to Benjamin 
 Franklin, who wrote thus regarding them, “ I am distributing your valuable 
 present of Cameos among my friends, in whose Countenances I have seen 
 such Marks of being affected by contemplating the Figure of the Suppliant 
 (which is admirably executed) that I am persuaded it may have an effect equal 
 to that of the best written Pamphlet in procuring Favour to those oppressed 
 People.” 
 
 Ladies of rank and fashion — Lady Diana Beauclerk, Lady Templeton, 
 and Miss Crewe, contributed at this later date, many charming designs and 
 models ; and these Wedgwood reproduced in various forms. The two last 
 bas-reliefs which stand on the list of the final edition of the Catalogue 
 are amongst the finest things Flaxman ever modelled, “ Diana visiting 
 Endymion,” and “ Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides.” For this last 
 bas-relief, which was charged to Wedgwood on the 10th of August 1787, he 
 was paid ^23 ; and about seven days later he and his wife set off to Rome. 
 About the same period Webber also visited Rome, where in March 1788 he 
 
 1 Engraved, “ Life of Wedgwood,” vol. ii. p. 565. 
 
 S 
 
66 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 was at work in the Museum Capitolinum. Under his and Flaxman’s directions 
 a body of modellers and gem engravers were organized, and to their labours 
 we owe several of the subjects of the bas-reliefs which appear in our 
 Illustrations. 
 
 Prior to his departure for Rome, Webber finished his model of the 
 Barberini vase, which the Duke of Portland had generously lent to Wedgwood. 
 Upon his return to Etruria in November 1789 his labours were resumed, and 
 after infinite pains and disappointments, as to colour, form, undercutting, and 
 firing, Wedgwood had the delight of seeing perfected one of the finest copies 
 of his last and greatest work. It was carried to London and after being shown 
 to the Queen by Wedgwood’s friend, M. de Luc, it was placed for some days 
 in the rooms of the Society of Antiquaries, and while there its entire 
 similitude to the original was certified to, as given in our Illustration, by Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds. Upon its removal thence to Greek Street, tickets to view 
 it were issued. Persons of the highest rank and position availed themselves 
 of this privilege ; and when the show was closed it formed the gem of a rich 
 assortment of ornamental goods taken abroad by Josiah Wedgwood the 
 younger and his cousin Mr. Byerley. They visited Paris, the Hague, Hanover, 
 Berlin, and Frankfort; and were received at the respective courts and by the 
 nobility with the greatest consideration. The works they exhibited were alike 
 admired and appreciated, and they were assured that no other manufacture 
 could pretend to such a high degree of perfection. 
 
 The production of his copies of the Barberini vase, was Wedgwood’s last, 
 as it was his greatest triumph in ceramic art. His health had been long 
 declining, and after a brief illness he died at Etruria, on Saturday, January 3, 
 1795, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. On Tuesday, January 6, he was 
 buried in the parish church of Stoke-upon-Trent. 
 
 The principles on which he based his labour, rather than the works them¬ 
 selves, must be held in view by those who aspire to advance the arts of the 
 •country in as eminent a degree. The beautiful bodies he perfected and 
 invented, the basaltes and jasper, may be safely left in the hands of his 
 descendants, his grandson, and great grandsons, who in every sense have 
 resuscitated modern Etruria, and in the International Exhibitions of 1861 and 
 1872, displayed works in jasper of which their illustrious father would surely 
 
Wedgwood and his Works. 
 
 67 
 
 have been proud. Our manufacturing and artistic wants are his thoroughness, 
 his conscientiousness, his desire to make all his works perfect and beautiful 
 in their varying degree, whether it was an ordinary plate, an ornamental 
 pudding-mould, a splendid jasper vase or a plaque. “Utility,” said Mr. 
 Gladstone, in his famous speech, “ is not to be sacrificed to beauty, but they 
 are generally compatible, often positively helpful to each other, and it may be 
 safely asserted, that the periods when the study of beauty has been neglected 
 have usually been marked, not by a more successful pursuit of utility, but by a 
 
 general decline in the energies of man.Of imagination, fancy, taste, of 
 
 the highest cultivation in all its forms, this great nation has abundance. Of 
 industry, skill, perseverance, mechanical contrivance, it has a yet larger stock, 
 which overflows our narrow bounds and floods the world. The one great want 
 is, to bring these two groups of qualities harmoniously together, and this was 
 the peculiar excellence of Wedgwood ; his excellence peculiar in such a degree, 
 as to give his name a place above every other, so far as I know, in the history 
 of British industry, and remarkable and entitled to fame, even in the history 
 of the industry of the world.” 
 
 When we are told by some few writers, who presume to be authorities, 
 that as a nation we have no art in our souls, and when we are denounced by 
 University lecturers as a people too sunk in selfishness to even comprehend 
 classic art, much less to create after its methods, we listen to mere figures of 
 speech, not to that which has its basis in truth. Such assertions can neither 
 affect the opinion of the connoisseur nor depress the aspirations of the student. 
 We may proudly say we are a greatly artistic nation in all senses of art, and 
 in evidence, we may point to the builders and decorators of our cathedrals, 
 to our poets and our painters, our sculptors, our workers in metal, and even 
 our potters, for Wedgwood and Minton had place among them. We may 
 point to what our nation has done in all the work of human hands. We 
 want more culture, a more absolute sense of and craving for the perfect, we 
 want to leave a dead classicism, for the classicism to be found in the eternal 
 principles of nature, and we want unity and consistency to characterize our 
 least productions. We have made great progress within a recent date. We 
 shall make much more. There is no finer material available to the artist than 
 clay; and it is possible to make it auxiliary to other branches of art manu- 
 
68 
 
 Wedgwood and his Works . 
 
 facture ; to wall-decoration—both external and internal—to stove decora¬ 
 tion—when we have reformed our methods of house warming and ventila¬ 
 tion—to statuary and to table and floral service. The future of the potter’s 
 art in this country is only a question of time and culture. It has a field for 
 effects, far wider and more fruitful than even Wedgwood so ardently pictured ; 
 and if we learn to bring together the truth of all underlying ideas, and their 
 true adornment, a day may not be distant when our plastic works may deco¬ 
 rate the myriad cities and homes of our vast dependencies, and our “little 
 isle" be, in an artistic sense, as sacred to British colonists, as was Samos to 
 the Greeks in the classic age. 
 

 T'. 
 
 1 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PLATE II. 
 
 The Apotheosis of Homer. 
 
 I) AS-RELIEF or tablet. Body and relief alike white. Length, 14 inches; height, 
 7 inches. Designed by Flaxman for Wedgwood between 1777 and 1779. It 
 appeared subsequently in various sizes and forms. It is a most poetic subject poetically 
 rendered; and, considering that Flaxman was not more than twenty-three years of age 
 when he modelled the design for this fine bas-relief, it may be considered to indicate all 
 those qualities of grace, simplicity, keeping, and truth which, exhibited in his later works, 
 have given rightly to him the fame of being the most distinguished of English sculptors. 
 His repetition of this subject, though in a simpler manner, in “ Homer’s Invocation to the 
 Muse;” Illustrations to the “ Iliad,” plate 1, and in plates 12, 13, and 16 of the “Odyssey;” 
 indicates that neither this famous Apotheosis, nor that of Virgil, was forgotten. That 
 many of Wedgwoods plaques were thus decorated by the first fruits of Flaxman’s genius, 
 adds greatly to their value, and must render them, as time progresses, of greater and 
 greater value. A fine copy, but little undercut, of a most justly celebrated and invaluable 
 plaque.— Faleke Collection. 
 
 The Apotheosis of Virgil. 
 
 Bas-relief or tablet. Blue jasper; white relief. Length, 14 inches ; height, 7 inches. 
 Designed by Flaxman for Wedgwoo.d between 1779 and 1787. It first appears 
 in the 6th edition of the Catalogue, published in the latter year. By some it is con¬ 
 sidered to be the Apotheosis of Alexander the Great; and the subject of a similar plaque 
 is so named by the authorities at the South Kensington Museum. But Wedgwood’s 
 Catalogue proves that this latter title is incorrect. The treatment of this bas-relief is in 
 parts fine, though critics of severe taste object to the pose of the figure indicating Fame. 
 A masterly copy of a famous plaque .—Falcke Collection. 
 
 Orestes and Pylades. 
 
 Bas-relief, or oblong tablet. Pale blue jasper; white relief. Length, 22^ inches; 
 height, 7^ inches. Subject : Orestes and Pylades on the coast of Ithaca. Modelled 
 by John Devaere for Wedgwood, in Flaxman’s atelier at Rome, between 1790 and 1793. 
 The story is taken at the point where Orestes and Pylades, being led to sacrifice in the 
 Temple of Diana, are saved by Iphigenia, the priestess of the temple. Having learnt that 
 they are natives of Greece, she, in presenting a letter to them for delivery in that country, 
 discovers that Orestes is her brother, Pylades her cousin, and so flies with them. The 
 figures and drapery are well modelled, and the temple is given in lower relief, for the 
 purpose of suggesting the idea of distance. A choice plaque of late date. Another copy 
 is in the Graham Collection .—Bragg Collection. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 . * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A 
 

PLATE III. 
 
 Education of Bacchus. 
 
 T 3 AS-RELIEF or tablet. Pale blue jasper; white relief. Length, inches; 
 
 height, 6 f inches. Marked “Wedgwood.” It appears to be an adapted portion of 
 a larger plaque; the woman on the right being evidently one of a group which balanced 
 the fine one to the left. This favourite subject of the artists of antiquity shows one scene 
 in the rearing up of Bacchus by the nymphs of Mount Nysa. Two of his nurses are 
 here busied in fitting on his first pair of boots; their father, old Silenus, is beating one of 
 his sons for slily meddling with the wine skin; another son pulls down a vine branch 
 behind his head, in order to keep the infant steady during the operation. A fine specimen, 
 hitherto unrecorded .—Bragg Collection. 
 
 Achilles and the Daughters of Lycomedes. 
 
 Bas-relief or Tablet. Black jasper, white bas-reliefs. Length, 19 inches, height 7 
 inches. The story is at the point where the sex of Achilles is revealed by his seizing the 
 armour instead of choosing the jewels laid before him by Ulysses. This bas-relief was 
 modelled in Flaxman’s atelier at Rome by Devaere for Wedgwood. The latter, guided 
 probably by prints, chose this and other subjects for modelling; for Flaxman wrote thus, 
 Feb. 11, 1790:—“I am much obliged by your kind attention, and the employment of 
 your good taste in the choice of subjects for Mr. Devaere’s modelling; and amongst 
 them the last model of the ‘ Discovery of Achilles,’ I admire very much for the 
 spirit, action, and beauty of the figures, as well as the interestingness of the story itself.” 
 This plaque, in a size somewhat smaller, is given in “ The Life of Wedgwood,” vol. ii. 
 p. 588 ; and if comparison be made, the superiority of permanent photography over wood- 
 engravings, however fine, will at once be seen. A superb specimen of Wedgwood’s won¬ 
 derful skill .—Falcke Collection. 
 
 The Judgment of Paris. 
 
 Bas-relief or tablet. Black jasper; white bas-relief. Height 7 inches; length 1 Sc¬ 
 inches. This tablet in a small form, 3 inches by 2\ inches, appears in the first and second 
 editions of the Catalogue. It was remodelled on a larger scale for Wedgwood by 
 Flaxman, between 1775 and 1777, and is numbered 183 in the fourth edition of the 
 catalogue published in the latter year. Another version seems to have been modelled in 
 1790-1791 by Devaere whilst at work in Flaxman’s atelier at Rome. The figures and 
 draperies are exquisitely modelled and undercut. There are a few technical defects, 
 as in the column and middle urn, acquired probably in firing .—Mayer Collection. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PLATE IV. 
 
 The Dancing Hours. 
 
 T) AS-RELIEF, or oblong tablet. Dark blue jasper ; white relief. Length, io inches; 
 
 height, 3 inches. This exquisite gem was modelled for Wedgwood by Flaxman in 
 1 77b, and first appears in the fifth edition of the Catalogue, 1779. The idea of these 
 graceful figures were suggested by the Horae, or seasons, of which several bas-reliefs, 
 differing in design, have descended to modern times ; or by the Graces, three lovely 
 youthful figures which, prior to the time of Socrates, were draped, and in earlier ages 
 formed a chorus hand in hand, as described by Pindar. It was modelled in various sizes ; 
 the largest being 16 inches by 6 in height. A size, 2 inches higher, was adorned with 
 festoons or garlands. It was a favourite subject for the frieze or central piece of chimney- 
 pieces ; and, first applied as a bas-relief to the black vases, was, after 1780, used with 
 still greater effect on the jasper vases. The admirers of Flaxman’s genius will see in these 
 exquisite figures the germs of much of his after excellence as a sculptor ; and recognize the 
 same grace and chasteness in far more ambitious labours. Nothing in antique art gives a 
 more perfect idea of poetic movement. A beautiful and perfect bas-relief of the highest 
 quality .—Sib son Collection. 
 
 Apollo and Four, Muses, and Bacchic Genius and Cupid. 
 
 Three bas-reliefs; one oblong, two oval and smaller. Light blue jasper; white 
 relief. Recently belonging to a chimney-piece; in situ ninety years at No. 5, Gray’s-inn 
 Square, London. Cut out 19th of June, 1872. Marked “Wedgwood and Bentley.” 
 Size of centre tablet or frieze, as it was called—Length, i6| inches ; height, 7 inches. 
 Subject: Apollo and four Muses—viz. Erato, Euterpe, Clio, and Calliope (? Polymnia). 
 Under each figure is the name on a printed strip of paper, in the condition received from 
 Wedgwood and Bentley's warehouse. This is quite unique. The frieze and two blocks, 
 as they were termed, were inserted in wood. Of Wedgwood and Bentley’s best period, 
 and finely modelled. Original purchaser, John Townson, Esq. ; price, 8^. This 
 frieze or tablet has a bevelled edge highly polished, in order to show the beauty of the 
 body composition and its laminated colouring—an effect more than once referred to by 
 Wedgwood in his letters to Bentley. Side medallions, or as they were termed, blocks. 
 These were inserted in the architraves above the columns of the mantel-piece. Oval. 
 Height, 5 inches ; width, 3^ inches. Subjects :—Bacchic Genius drawn by panthers, and 
 blowing a horn ; Cupid burning a butterfly (Psyche). Original price : Bacchic Genius, 12$.; 
 Cupid, 15^. A most choice and rare possession .—Bragg Collection. 
 
 We find, from Christie’s Sale Catalogue published in 1781, that these decorations for 
 insertion in chimney-pieces consisted of three, sometimes of four, distinct bas-reliefs :—that 
 is, one frieze and two blocks, as in the present instance ; or one tablet, one frieze, and two 
 blocks. The frieze was always placed between the architraves, and the tablet generally 
 in the wood-work above the cornice. 
 
! 
 
PLATE V. 
 
 No. i. Five Muses. 
 
 ' I ^ABLET. Deep blue jasper; white relief. Oblong. Length 15^ inches, height 
 inches. Subject : five of the Muses—viz. Terpsichore, Melpomene, Calliope, 
 Thalia, and Urania. These five, with the four given in the previous part, make up 
 the nine Muses. They were taken from a sarcophagus in the Capitoline Gallery at Rome. 
 Flaxman’s interpretation from the antique of this fine and truly classical subject is in his 
 best manner; several of the figures far exceeding the original statues in grace and beauty. 
 He modelled them for Wedgwood between 1777 and 1779. This extremely fine bas-relief, 
 in two parts, is in the Sibson Collection; but only one is given, in order to avoid repetition. 
 Apollo and the Nine Muses and the Dancing Hours were, from the beauty of their 
 subjects, and the fineness of their execution, amongst the most popular of Wedgwood’s 
 large plaques .—Sibson Collection. 
 
 No. 2. Apollo instructing youthful Bacchus. 
 
 Bas-relief, or tablet. Light blue jasper; white bas-relief. Length 15 inches, 
 height 6 \ inches. A composition piece of probably early date .—Bragg Collection . 
 
 No. 3. Bacchanalian Triumph. 
 
 Bas-relief or tablet. Blue jasper; white reliefs. Bacchus, Ariadne, Silenus and 
 attendants. Height 6 inches, length 21^ inches. This is undoubtedly the tablet 
 numbered 153 in the fourth edition of the catalogue, 1777. The four female figures 
 betray all the supreme grace of Flaxman’s hand; and are repeated with variations in many 
 of his bas-reliefs .—Mayer Collection. 
 
PLATE VI. 
 
 No. i. Achilles delivered to Chiron by Thetis. 
 
 T) AS-RELIEF or tablet. Pale blue jasper; white relief. Length i8|-inches, height 
 6| inches. Thetis is delivering her infant son Achilles to Chiron the Centaur to be 
 • instructed in the art of hunting. Achilles, seated on the Centaur’s back, is following his 
 example in casting an arrow at a lion which, already wounded, is entering a forest. The 
 design for this plaque was modelled by Pacetti at Rome some time between 1790-1795. 
 The field of the design is rather bare ; but portions are nicely undercut, and great expres¬ 
 sion is conveyed in the face of the Centaur. An interesting plaque, but not of the highest 
 quality either in .colour or subject. There is a copy of this plaque in the Graham Collec¬ 
 tion .—Bragg Collection. 
 
 No. 2. Death of a Roman Warrior. 
 
 Bas-relief or Tablet in basaltes. Black; oblong. Length 18^- inches, height 10% 
 inches. The original bas-relief, of which this is a copy, was one of several adorning a 
 sarcophagus discovered near Rome in the early part of the eighteenth century. In this 
 was found the celebrated vase, known afterwards as the Barberini; and an inscription 
 testified that the sarcophagus had contained the ashes of the Emperor Alexander 
 Severus and his mother, Julia Mamaea, both of whom were killed in the year a.d. 235, 
 during a revolt in Germany. This tablet appears in the first edition of the Catalogue, and 
 Wedgwood was probably indebted to Lord Cathcart, or Sir William Hamilton, for a 
 print or cast of the original bas-relief. The copy under notice is a remarkably fine 
 one; sharp and well undercut. The lovers of more purely classical art criticize the 
 harshness of its style, and object to the subject. It is nevertheless very fine. Wedgwood 
 had many difficulties in firing this tablet, and refers to one instance in a letter to Bentley, 
 February, 1776 .—Sib son Collection. 
 
 No. 3. Sacrifice to Bacchus. 
 
 Bas-relief or tablet. Blue jasper; white bas-relief. Height 8-£ inches, length 19 
 inches. Of early date, and not of the highest quality. A large one appears in the 
 first edition of the catalogue, 1 773, and may have been from a model by William 
 Greatbach, at Etruria, or Mrs. Landre in London. It was yet too early for Hackwood. 
 This tablet, from the Bagshawe collection will be found engraved in the “ Life of 
 Wedgwood,” vol. ii. p. 369. —Mayer Collection. 
 
PLATE VII. 
 
 No. i. Offering to Ceres. 
 
 T)AS-RELIEF or tablet. Dark blue jasper ; white relief. Length vf- inches, height 
 ^ inches. We are inclined to believe this to be, “An Offering to Flora,” modelled 
 by Flaxman for Wedgwood in the summer of 1778, and referred to in a letter to Bentley 
 in the August of that year. It appears in the fifth edition of the Catalogue, 1779. A 
 most exquisite and characteristic specimen .—Falcke Collection. 
 
 No. 2. Bacchanalian Boys. 
 
 Two bas-reliefs or tablets, of five and four figures respectively. Modelled from .a 
 design in wax by Lady Diana Beauclerk, the friend of Horace Walpole. The model 
 was once in the Strawberry Hill Collection; it is now in that of Dr. Sibson, Brook 
 Street. Upper tablet:—Dark blue jasper; white reliefs. Length 12^ inches, height 5^ 
 inches. Subject: Bacchanalian Boys with Flowers ; under canopies of panthers’ skins, with 
 columns and vases. Lower tablet :—Sage green jasper; white relief. Same length 
 and height. Subject: Cupid asleep, and young satyrs with foliage, flowers, and fruit. 
 Drapery festoons, columns, vases, panthers’ heads and skins. These beautiful designs 
 were modelled for Wedgwood by Lady Beauclerk between 1780 and 1787. Generally 
 speaking, these groups are made to form one tablet; and as such it appears in the sixth 
 edition of the Catalogue, 1787. “ No. 244. Bacchanalian tablet of six boys under arbours, 
 
 with panther skins in festoons, &c. 26 inches high, 5- wide.” There is probably a mistake 
 in these figures ; length being substituted for height. Two tablets of extreme beauty and 
 rare quality. A fine example of this with five boys in one piece is in the Graham 
 Collection .—Sibson Collection. 
 

PLATE VIII. 
 
 No. i. Two Warriors and Horse. 
 
 J^AS-RELIEF or medallion. Pale blue jasper; white relief. Diameter inches. 
 
 This bas-relief does not appear in the Catalogues; but it is, there can be little doubt, 
 a copy from the “ Cast of a fragment by Phidias,” modelled by Flaxman for Wedgwood, 
 Sept. 6, 1782, and charged ias\ 6 d. in a bill of that period. It has all the simplicity of 
 treatment, truth, and accuracy of Greek sculpture at its meridian. The cast may be from 
 some fragments of antique sculpture sent to this country by Sir William Hamilton. A 
 beautiful and choice medallion.— Tulk Collection. 
 
 No. 2. Peace preventing Mars from breaking open the Gates of Janus. 
 
 Bas-relief or tablet. Pale green jasper; white relief. Width 10^ inches, height 9^ 
 inches. The design for this fine bas-relief was charged by Flaxman to Wedgwood, January 
 16, 1787. It must, therefore, have been modelled sometime in 1786. His price was fifteen 
 guineas. It does not appear in the Catalogue. Its subject, bearing reference, probably, to 
 the ratification of Peace with America, was not likely to make the design popular. Wedg¬ 
 wood’s sympathies throughout the war had sided with the Americans; but public feeling 
 in this country was, generally speaking, against them and their cause. The absence of 
 this plaque from the Catalogues is only one of many instances; but we hope to give a 
 pretty correct list of all those absent in a work which will appear at no late date. The 
 bas-relief under notice is extremely fine ; full of simplicity, character, and action, and well 
 undercut. The grace and softness of the female figure representing Peace being in striking 
 contrast to the masculine force exhibited in that of Mars.— Tulk Collection. 
 
 No. 3. Bacchus and Two Bacchantes. 
 
 Oval cameo medallion. Pale blue jasper ; white relief. Length 9 inches, height 
 6£ inches. The three figures are similar to those placed centrally in the bas-relief, “ A 
 Bacchanalian Triumph.” The design, both in this form and in the other, is undoubtedly 
 that of Flaxman. It wears all his peculiar grace and characteristics of style, as evidenced 
 in the Bacchante to the left, when compared with the sixth figure to the left, in the fine 
 tablet of the “ Dancing Hours.” The flow of the drapery is simply reversed. The full 
 tablet is unquestionably that numbered 153 in the fourth edition of the Catalogue, 1777. 
 A fine medallion, adapted at Etruria from the original design. The vase introduced to 
 the right is off the perpendicular; a slight defect acquired in firing.— Tulk Collection. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

PLATE IX. 
 
 No. i. Minerva. 
 
 T T EAD of Minerva with helmet and the aegis. Dark blue jasper; white relief. Large 
 ^ cameo. Height 8 inches, width 6 inches. From the antique. Figured in 
 Spence’s Polymetis, and numbered in the first and subsequent editions of Wedgwood’s 
 Catalogue. Modelled undoubtedly by Flaxman. A most exquisite and choice specimen. 
 —Mayer Collection. 
 
 No. 2. Juno standing with a Sceptre. 
 
 Oval plaque; blue jasper; white bas-relief. Height 7~ inches, width 5 inches. 
 This exquisite bas-relief was modelled from the antique for Wedgwood by Flaxman, 
 in April 1775, at a charge of half-a-guinea. See “ Life of Wedgwood,” vol. ii. p. 322. 
 A most exquisite and perfect gem .—Mayer Collection. 
 
 No. 3. Jupiter holding the Thunderbolt and Sceptre. 
 
 Oval plaque ; blue jasper; white bas-relief. Height 7 Jr inches, width 5 inches. 
 Modelled as the preceding, by Flaxman, in April 1775. They stand No. 99 and 98 in 
 the fourth edition of the Catalogue, 1777. A magnificent example .—Mayer Collection. 
 

PLATE X. 
 
 No. i. Head of a Bacchante. 
 
 T ) AS-RELIEF or oval medallion. Pale blue jasper ; white relief. This most beau- 
 tiful object may be the “ Bacchante ” referred to in Flaxman’s accounts with 
 Wedgwood under March 7, 1781, wherein the design is charged £\ Finely modelled 
 and undercut, and worthy of all praise. One of the gems of a small but most choice 
 gathering of Wedgwood’s labours in the direction of fine and classical art.— Tulk Col¬ 
 lection. 
 
 No. 2. Genius of Flora leaning on an Altar. 
 
 Oval plaque or medallion. Light blue jasper, white relief. Height 7^ inches, 
 width 4^ inches. Modelled by Theodore Parker for Wedgwood and Bentley in 
 September, 1769. Price charged, 15L —Mayer Collection. 
 
 No. 3. Ganymedes and the Eagle. 
 
 Oval medallion. Light blue jasper; white bas-relief. Height inches, width 
 5^ inches. This exquisite gem was modelled at Etruria, between 1777 and 1779. 
 It stands No. 225 in the fifth edition of the Catalogue. Wedgwood thus refers to 
 this bas-relief in a letter to Bentley, April 14, 1778 : “ We shall send you three pieces of 
 jasper to-day from Sir Roger Newdigate’s models, which with the Eagle and Ganymede 
 should be sent with our compliments to that good gentleman, humbly begging his 
 acceptance of these first fruits of his generosity towards us.” A most beautiful and 
 perfect specimen .—Mayer Collection. 
 
} 
 
 
 
PLATE XI. 
 
 Two Groups of Boys. 
 
 XT O. i, Piping Bacchus and Cupid. No. 2, Cupid and Hymen. Cameo Medallions. 
 ^ ^ Black jasper; white bas-reliefs. Height 4^ inches, width \\ inches. These 
 exquisite medallions wear all the appearance of FlaxmaiVs workmanship, particularly in 
 the modelling of the wings. The design may be that referred to in his bill to Wedgwood 
 of 1784. “ A bas-relief of boys in wax.” Most perfect gems, finely modelled and 
 
 undercut .—Mayer Collection. 
 
 No. 2. Three Bacchanalian Figures. 
 
 Bas-relief or tablet, divided by festoons and floriage. Dark sage green jasper; white 
 bas-relief. Height 5 inches, length 11 inches. Of extreme beauty as to design, 
 modelling, and undercutting. It was designed probably for a frieze, and is without doubt 
 the tablet numbered from 126 to 130 in the fourth edition of the Catalogue, 1777.— 
 Mayer Collection. 
 
PLATE XII. 
 
 No. i. The Calydonian Boar Hunt. 
 
 T) AS-RELIEF, or oval plaque. Black basaltes. Height 6 inches, width 9 inches. 
 
 Like the preceding, one of Wedgwood and Bentley's earliest plaques as it appears 
 in the first edition of the Catalogue, 1773. Style of the Renaissance, and the design 
 evidently an appropriation from metal-work. A most beautiful copy. Another copy in 
 the Graham Collection .—Bragg Collection. 
 
 No. 2. War of Jupiter and the Titans. 
 
 Bas-relief, or oval plaque. Black basaltes. Height 6 inches, width 9 inches. 
 One of Wedgwood and Bentley’s earliest plaques, as it appears in the first edition of the 
 Catalogue, 1773. Cinque-cento in style, and apparently derived from a design in metal¬ 
 work. An extremely fine and beautiful copy .—Bragg Collection. 
 
 No. 3. Marriage Supper of Perseus and Andromeda. 
 
 Bas-relief, or oval plaque. Black basaltes. Height 6 inches, width 9 inches. 
 An early plaque of Wedgwood and Bentley as it appears in the first edition of the 
 Catalogue, 1773. Renaissance in character. A fine and perfect copy. These plaques 
 have frames in their own material. At a later date they were made in the jasper body ; 
 but the result is not so full of character .—Bragg Collection. 
 

 
PLATE XIII. 
 
 No. i. Psyche wounded and bound by Cupids. 
 
 / \VAL plaque or medallion. Dark blue jasper, white relief. Height 2\ inches, 
 length 4^ inches. Anthemion border, white on sage green. Probably a somewhat 
 late, but beautiful medallion .—Mayer Collection. 
 
 No. 2. Feast of the Gods. 
 
 Bas-relief, or oval plaque. Black basaltes. Height 6 inches, width g inches. 
 An early plaque of Wedgwood and Bentley, as it appears in the first edition of the 
 Catalogue, 1773. Renaissance in style. A fine and perfect copy .—Bragg Collection. 
 
 No. 3. Friendship consoling Affliction. 
 
 Bas-relief or medallion. Long oval. Length 4! inches, height 3 inches. Dark blue 
 asper ; white bas-relief; tongue and egg border in pale lilac. From a design by Lady 
 Templeton. Stands No. 240 in the sixth edition of the Catalogue, 1787. An exquisite 
 and perfect gem .—Mayer Collection. 
 
PLATE XIV. 
 
 CAMEOS. 
 
 ^ 7 RAME of one central medallion and fourteen cameos. Medallion—dull blue jasper, 
 -*“■ white relief. Height 7 inches, width 5-J inches. Subject, Diomedes gazing at the 
 Palladium. Modelled evidently from the antique. A fine medallion. The cameos are of 
 various colours and degrees of excellence, and include, among their subjects, Maternity and 
 Childhood, from designs by Miss Crewe and Lady Templeton ; Cupid shaving his bow, 
 Omphale with the club of Hercules, sacrifices, emblems of victory, and female figures.— 
 Sib son Collection. 
 

 
PLATE XV. 
 
 FRAMES OF CAMEOS. 
 
 No. i. Hope addressing Peace, Labour, and Plenty; 
 
 with others. 
 
 W THITE on blue. Nine of these ten cameos are commemorative of German victories, 
 * * and from designs by Flaxman. A portion, if not all of the models are still in the 
 possession of Mr. Denman. The tenth cameo, on the upper line to the right, is a very 
 beautiful reduced copy of the design known as “ Hope addressing Peace, Labour, and 
 Plenty.” It was modelled by Webber at Etruria in 1789, and is thus referred to by 
 Erasmus Darwin, in the “ Botanic Garden 
 
 “Whether, O Friend of Art! the gem you mould, 
 
 Rich with new taste, with ancient virtue bold, 
 
 From the poor fetter’d slave on bended knee, 
 
 From Britain’s sons imploring to be free ; 
 
 Or with fair Hope the brightening scenes improve. 
 
 And cheer the dreary wastes at Sydney Cove.” 
 
 No. 2. The Body of Hector Dragged at the Car of Achilles, 
 
 and others. 
 
 Most of the cameos are derived from pastes by Tassie of antique gems. The one 
 which occupies the centre is a superb oval cameo 4^ inches by 3, the field being coloured 
 of a rare shade of dark green, with the Greek Ionic egg and tongue border. The subject, 
 derived from Homer’s “ Iliad,” book 24, is “ The body of Hector dragged at the car of 
 Achilles.” The original is in carnelian, and anticipates rather than excels Flaxman’s 
 more elaborate and splendid treatment of the same subject in plate 36 of his “ Compo¬ 
 sitions from Homer’s Iliad .”—Sibson Collection. 
 
PLATE XVI. 
 
 CAMEOS. 
 
 RAME of Nine Cameos. Various colours and subjects. Cupid dressing a mask; 
 Cupid riding on a lion ; Charites or Graces, and other figures .—Falcke Collection. 
 

PLATE XVII. 
 
 BUSTS. 
 
 t 
 
 1 ) LACK basaltes. Centre, Spenser. Height, with pedestal, 15^ inches. From a cast 
 sent to Etruria in 1775 by Grant and Hoskins. To the right, Milton. Height 13^ 
 inches. From a cast, same as preceding. To left, Washington. Height 13^ inches. 
 Of a considerably later date than the foregoing, and not so finely rendered. Washington’s 
 likeness appears only in the form of a medallion in the sixth and last edition of the 
 Catalogue, 1787. The busts of Spenser and Milton are choice examples of the perfection 
 attained by Wedgwood in portrait sculpture .—Bragg Collection . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

PLATE XVIII. 
 
 BUSTS. 
 
 No. i. Bust of Voltaire. 
 
 T) LACK basaltes. Height 20- inches. One of the finest busts ever produced by 
 Wedgwood. The photograph being too full of shadow scarcely does justice 
 to the life-like expression of the original. These busts were generally modelled from 
 casts bought of Flaxman’s father, Hoskins and Grant, and other dealers. A few of the 
 finest busts were from models by Flaxman, as in the case of the busts of Rousseau, Sterne, 
 and Mrs. Siddons. This bust of Voltaire did not appear till 1779, and then only in three 
 small forms, which were not increased in 1787. The date of this splendid production 
 must, therefore, lie between the latter year and 1795. A most choice possession .—Bragg 
 Collection. 
 
 No. 2. Bust of Grotius. 
 
 Black basaltes. Height 20^- inches. Modelled between 1777 and 1779. A striking 
 bust, but with a little too much shadow in the photograph. A fine and sterling specimen of 
 Wedgwood’s labours in portrait sculpture .—Bragg Collection. 
 

 • -J 
 
 

PLATE XIX. 
 
 Group I. Three Vases and Pedestals, and two Bouquetiers or Flower-pots. 
 
 C^EA-GREEN jasper; white bas-reliefs. Height of central vase, 13 inches. Beaded 
 edge, acanthus and bay-leaf borders. Subject of bas-reliefs—Lady Templeton’s 
 groups. Height of pedestal, inches. Griffins’ and rams’ heads as corner ornaments. 
 Subject of bas-reliefs—Peace with wreath and branch of palm, Plenty with cornucopia, 
 nymph bearing cup, and Juno with peacock. Smaller vases, height 10 inches, pedestal 
 4 -i inches. Bas-reliefs alike on both vases. Subjects ; nymphs with wreath, goat and 
 child. Ornaments on pedestals ; wreaths, trophies, musical instruments, and animal heads. 
 Ribbon and bay-leafage borders. Square bouquetiers or flower-pots with architectural 
 pediments. Floriage springing from base, acanthus and rayed ornaments. Subjects of 
 bas reliefs—Figures with torches and child, Aesculapius, figures playing lyre and reading. 
 
 These vases, pedestals, and bouquetiers are unique for perfection, colour, and design. 
 They are of the finest period—that between 1780 and 1795 .—Falcke Collection. 
 
 Group 2. Three Bouquetiers and two Gondola-shaped Candelabra. 
 
 Blue jasper, white bas-reliefs. Middle bouquetiers of vase form, with granulated 
 or scaled surface. Height 9^- inches. Subject of bas-reliefs—the nine Muses. Divi¬ 
 sional border of masks, musical instruments, and helix ornament. Acanthus leafage on 
 foot and springing therefrom. Gondola-shaped candelabra for double lights, resting on 
 griffins’ heads. Height 9^ inches. Centres for use as pastile or incense burners. 
 Beautifully modelled figure, to lids, of Cupid leaning on his quiver. On foot, cinquecento 
 interpretation of Greek border. Pedestals, 5^ inches in height. Floriation springing 
 from base. At sides two square bouquetiers with architectural pediments and small bas- 
 reliefs of subjects from cameos .—Falcke Collection. 
 
"A' WWV\M!V«VV.UT 
 
 
 
 
 % 
 
PLATE XX. 
 
 Group i. Tripod and Vases. 
 
 rRIPOD Vase for pastiles or scent. Black basaltes. Height 9^ inches; fluted and 
 ornamented. Marked “ Wedgwood.” A most perfect specimen. 
 
 Vase. Black basaltes. Height 8 inches. Serpent handles, acanthus border, on top 
 of oviform border and strap-work. Highly polished on lathe. A most choice and rare 
 specimen; the annexation and form of handles being remarkable for grace. Marked 
 “ Wedgwood and Bentley.” 
 
 Vase, on base. Black basaltes. Height gj inches; incised lines or fluting; wreathed 
 vine ornament. Top reverses and forms a candlestick. A most choice specimen. 
 Marked “ Wedgwood and Bentley .”—Bragg Collection. 
 
 Group 2. Vases. 
 
 Vase, on square base. Black basaltes. Fluted, with handles. Anthemion border of 
 great beauty, with bas-relief of a sacrifice dividing it. Marked “Wedgwood and Bentley.” 
 A splendid example. 
 
 Vase, on square base. Black basaltes. Reeded foot. Egg and tongue and ribbon 
 borders. Bas-relief of vine and fruit encircling upper portion of oviform ; beneath, bas- 
 relief, in same colour, of Birth of Achilles. A late but beautiful example .—Mayer 
 Collection. 
 

PLATE XXI. 
 
 Groups i and 2. Vases and Pedestals. 
 
 T^HREE vases, pedestals, and their reverses. Central vase, dark blue jasper ; white 
 A bas-reliefs. Etruscan or crater-form. Height, with pedestal, 18^ inches. Subject of 
 bas-reliefs—Priam begging the body of Hector ; reverse, Achilles and daughters of Lyco- 
 medes. Circular foot with rayed relief; square stand with helix border. Square pedestal 
 of light blue jasper. Subject of bas-relief—Sacrifice and other figures. 
 
 Side vases. Light blue jasper; white bas-reliefs. Height, with pedestals, 12^ 
 inches. Form similar to the painted Etruscan vases, thrown by Wedgwood on the 
 occasion of opening the ornamental works at Etruria, June 13, 1769. They pair in form, 
 but not in character of design; the one being classical, viz. Cupid and swans, Juno 
 and swans ; the other, Lady Templeton’s groups of Children. Pedestals white, with 
 coloured cameos. These vases are all of late date. The largest from about 1791 to 
 1795 .—Sib son Collection. 
 

 
 
 
PLATE XXII. 
 
 Group i. Escritoires. 
 
 T^scritoire or inkstand ; boat shape. Egyptian in style; 5 inches. Colour, 
 black on red. Alligator’s head at prow, bearing nozzle for light. Wings painted 
 red on sides of vessel. Sphynx in middle. Cock’s head at stern. A very curious example 
 of the many forms in which Wedgwood modelled inkstands. 
 
 Escritoire or inkstand. Gondola-shaped; mixed styles ; 3-J inches. Colour, red on 
 black. Bearded goat’s head at prow. Swan’s head and neck at stern. Centre cups for 
 ink, sand, &c. ornamented in relief, with groups of children similar to those Flaxman 
 modelled for tea things. Bay leaf and berry bordering.— Mayer Collection. 
 
 Group 2. Three Vases. 
 
 Vase. Black basaltes. Central figure, height 9^ inches. Subject of relief—Cybele 
 in car drawn by lions; reverse Triumph of Cybele. Handles finished by masks. Helix 
 border in relief; trophies and ribbon, and ovolo or egg or tongue edging. An exquisite 
 vase of the finest period, marked “ Wedgwood.” 
 
 Vase. (Black basaltes. Height 14^- inches. Subject of bas-relief—the Muses. 
 Handles finished by masks. Leafage ornament. On square base, decorated with 
 maeander pattern, marked “Wedgwood.” An exquisite and most perfect specimen. 
 
 Vase. Black basaltes. On plain base. Height 11 inches. Fluting on oviform, 
 and spiral fluting above pediment. Beneath drapery festoons in rich relief; as handles, 
 female heads, beautifully turned aside. An exquisite and rare specimen marked 
 “ Wedgwood and Bentley.”— Bragg Collection. 
 
 Group 3. Three Vases. 
 
 Three vases, with black bas-reliefs. Body colour red, or rosso antico. Centre vase 
 with square base. Height 13 inches. Style Egyptian : the upper portion apparently 
 designed to suggest the lotus flower. Sphynxes’ heads in black for handles. Ornaments 
 on the entablature or architrave—the scarabeus or beetle, and the Egyptian original of 
 the Greek meander. The lotus flower conventually treated. Beading and the maeander 
 cover the lower portions of the vase, foot and base. Lid crowned with the bud of the 
 lotus plant. An extremely fine and rare specimen ; and a masterpiece of Wedgwood’s 
 labours in the direction of Egyptian art. Mark “ Wedgwood.” Bought on the Continent. 
 
 Side vases ; a pair, on ornamental bases. Form derived from the Greek cantharos , a 
 kind of drinking-cup. Colour, black; bas-reliefs and ornaments red. Height 6|- inches. 
 Subjects of bas-reliefs—Pegasus watered at Helicon, Psyche bound by Cupids, and other 
 interesting subjects.— Bragg Collection. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PLATE XXIII. 
 
 Group i. Vases and Candelabrum. 
 
 7 "ASE, with serpent handles and square pedestal. Imperfect. Olive green jasper; 
 white bas-reliefs; height 14 inches. Subject of cameos—the Triumph of Venus 
 and Cupids feeding Swans. Beading and leafage borders. 
 
 Candelabrum for six lights. Pale blue jasper, white bas-reliefs. Height 20 by qf inches. 
 This splendid ornament seems to be one of a pair, and shows on what a magnificent scale 
 Wedgwood, at times, effected his decorative work. The Caryatides which support the 
 nozzles for lights are exquisitely modelled, and truly classical in taste and finish. The 
 cameos represent Bacchanalian figures; and the various borders and ornaments, though of 
 mixed styles, are full of beauty. The piece is imperfect, but still a most desirable object. 
 
 Vase, light blue jasper, white bas-reliefs; 14 inches. Subjects — Miss Crewe’s 
 maternal and infantile groups. Beading, leafage, and anthemion ornaments .—Mayer 
 Collection. 
 
 Group 2. Scent Jar and Vases. 
 
 Scent or pot-pourri jar, in form of temple. Pale blue jasper, white reliefs. Subjects— 
 female figures and military trophies. Height 14 inches. Scale and architectural orna¬ 
 ments ; wreaths and goats’ heads. A most choice object. 
 
 Vase ; imperfect. Light blue granulated or scaled jasper ; white bas-reliefs. Subject 
 of bas-reliefs—the nine Muses. Beading, leafage and festoon ornaments. 
 
 Vase, on square foot. Light blue jasper; white bas-reliefs. Height 14 inches. 
 Subject of bas-reliefs—Lady Templeton’s groups of Maternity and Infancy .—Mayer 
 Collection. 
 

PLATE XXIV. 
 
 Group i. Vases, Fruit Basket, and Honey Pot. 
 
 ENTRAL figure, fruit basket with handles and lid. Floriated open work cream 
 ware. Height 8 inches. First to right, honey pot in gold bronze ware. Height 
 inches. An exquisite and perfect example of this rare description of ware. Procured 
 privately from Russia. Second to right, flower vase, with castor top perforated for flowers. 
 Fluted blue lines on cream ware, gilt festoons. Height io inches. A very early speci¬ 
 men of work done at the Ivy House. First to left, flower vase in brown granite. 
 Height 6 inches. Second to left, flower vase, colour buff, with vine ornament in black. 
 Height 7^- inches. Choice specimens of their respective kinds .—Bragg Collection. 
 
 Group 2. Bouquetiers. 
 
 Three bouquetiers, or else bulbous root pots. Central piece, black jasper, white bas- 
 reliefs. Height 7 inches. Square or pedestal form with architectural pediment. Floriage 
 springing from base. Tongue ornament on foot. Subjects of bas-reliefs, Cupid and 
 Psyche, Hope on anchor, Venus walking with Cupid, Venus teaching Cupid. A beautiful 
 and perfect specimen. At sides, two circular bouquetiers, light blue granulated or scaled 
 jasper, with white bas-reliefs. Subjects, the Dancing Hours. Height 6 \ inches. 
 Beading, with leafage, acanthus, and helix borders .—Sibson Collection. 
 
 Group 3. Bouquetiers and Incense Burner, or Pot-pourri Jar. 
 
 Centre figure, square bouquetier, 8J inches high, on ornamental wooden pedestal. 
 Black jasper, white relief. Architectural base and pediment. Four medallions:—Cupid 
 warming his hands; ditto with wreath; ditto with bird and nest; ditto, wheat and 
 sickle. To right, tazza-shaped bouqueterie, 12 inches high, with perforated lid; supported 
 by three beautifully modelled figures, white with blue draperies, set tripod-wise. Festoons, 
 strap-work edging and anthemion or helix border. This is an exquisite and perfect 
 specimen. To left, tazza-shaped incense vase, or pot-pourri. Originally a bouquetier, 
 like the one to right, but made serviceable for a new purpose after breakage, by the appli¬ 
 cation of silvered bronze or amalgamated metal pedestal, columnar support, lid with swan 
 as handle, base with sphinxes set tripod-wise, and floriated handles. The style of this 
 metal-work, though of the best period of production at Soho, is entirely out of keeping 
 with that of the delicate pottery it supports; the latter being classical, the former 
 Egyptian .—Sibson Collection. 
 

 
 
 
PLATE XXV. 
 
 Group i. Three Crystalline Terra Cotta Vases. 
 
 ENTRE vase on base; imitation of black marble. Height, 15 inches. Superb 
 polish. Festooned wreaths in relief and gilt medallions. Acanthus border and 
 beading gilt. Handles. 
 
 To right, vase on base. Height 11 inches. Light green granite, fine polish. 
 Handles white, and elegantly entwined with serpents in same colour. White beading, 
 leafage ornaments, and band. 
 
 Vase to left. Imitation agate ; madder brown on yellowish white. Height 11 inches. 
 High polish. Moulded ; same composition throughout, but surfaced by veining in enamel. 
 Gilt festoons, rings and acanthus leaf border on top of oviform. Handles and lid with 
 woman on top. Three most exquisite vases. The peculiarities of this class of terra cotta 
 ornaments are commented on in the text. The Mayer and Falcke collections are parti¬ 
 cularly rich in fine and unique specimens .—Mayer Collection. 
 
 Group 2. Three Vases. 
 
 Vase. Crystalline body, imitating black marble. Height 11 inches. Festooned 
 wreath in relief, with oval medallions gilt. A beautiful specimen. 
 
 Vase. Height 13 inches. Crystalline imitation of serpentine, yellow on green. 
 Dolphin tail handle and spouts, gilt. A most singular vase. 
 
 Vase. Height 12 inches. Crystalline imitation of verd antique, with figures in relief 
 of Venus and Cupid. Handles terminated by masks .—Mayer Collection. 
 
 Group 3. Three Vases. 
 
 Vase on pediment. Black basaltes. Height 14 inches. Upper portion rayed with 
 the incised line peculiar to an early period. Drapery tastefully looped up by rings. 
 Three Graces in central medallion. Peculiar handles. Fluted foot on square base. 
 Highly polished on lathe. Marked “Wedgwood and Bentley.” A choice specimen. 
 
 Vase. Black basaltes on enriched base. Height 14 inches. Finely polished. 
 Handles exquisitely annexed, and covered with floriated relief, terminated by elongated 
 masks. Wreaths simply dropping from handle to handle. A vase beautiful from its sim¬ 
 plicity. Marked “Wedgwood and Bentley.” 
 
 Vase, with serpent handles, masks, and pedestals. Black basaltes. Height, 14 
 inches. Bas-reliefs—female figures, cupids, and wreath. A most elegant specimen.— 
 Bragg Collection. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PLATE XXVI. 
 
 Group i. Three Vases. 
 
 A A /"ITH serpent handles. Centre base. Dark blue; white reliefs. Height i6~ inches; 
 
 without Wedgwood mark, and extremely like the Avery vase engraved and 
 described in “ Life of Wedgwood,” vol. ii. p. 515. It is undoubtedly the work of Benjamin 
 Adams, of Tunstall, who died in 1804 or 1805. Subject of bas-relief—Venus and Adonis. 
 Vase to right; light blue jasper; bas-reliefs white. Subjects—“An Offering to Ceres;” 
 reverse, “ A Floral Offering.” Height 14^ inches. Leafage and acanthus ornament. 
 Helix or anthemion border to square base. Vase to left; serpent handles ; light blue 
 jasper ; white reliefs. Subjects—“ Achilles given whilst an infant by his mother Thetis 
 to the centaur Chiron ;” reverse, “ Chiron teaching Achilles to shoot a lion.” Same 
 height; same ornamental edges and leafage. Extremely fine specimens; probable date 
 1788 to 1795 .—Sib son Collection. 
 
 Group 2. Vases and Pedestal. 
 
 Three vases and one pedestal. Black jasper, white bas-reliefs. Centre vase, 
 height 12 inches. Subject of bas-relief, the nine Muses. Masks and handles. Helix 
 and leafage ornament round bottom and top of the oviform. Greek border round 
 foot. Circular pedestal, height \\ inches. Greek and bay-leaf borders. Subject of bas- 
 relief ; wreaths, ribbons, panthers’ heads, quivers and arrows. Side vases, black with 
 white, height 10 inches. Subject of bas-reliefs, the nine Muses. Serpent handles, Greek 
 borders, acanthus and leafage ornaments. These vases and pedestal are of exquisite and 
 perfect beauty, rare in colour and unique; of the fine period after 1780. The bas-reliefs 
 and ornamental portions, as it will be perceived, are admirably in keeping ; a point not 
 always observed even in the finest of Wedgwood’s vases .—Falcke Collection. 
 
PLATE XXVII. 
 
 Group i. Three Vases. 
 
 1 7 TRUSCAN painted vase. Red on black. Height 9-J inches. Subject of painting— 
 ' female figures. Bordering, variation of helix ornament. Elegant handles. To right, 
 Vase on pedestal. Height 6|- inches. Floral ornament in relief on base of oviform, 
 elegant handles. In relief, a group of female figures on either side. Ovolo, or egg and 
 tongue bordering on lip. Pedestal, with an exquisite ornament of wreaths, ribbons, and 
 ram’s head. One of the finest specimens of Wedgwood’s red on black extant. To left, 
 vase, red on black, Etruscan shape. Height 6^ inches .—Bragg Collection. 
 
 Group 2. Vase, Tripod, and Lamp. 
 
 Vase. Flat oval on stand. Height 9^- inches. Fluted-festoon drapery, acanthus 
 border strap work, and maeander on foot. Marked “ Wedgwood and Bentley.” A splendid 
 example. 
 
 Pastile burner; tripod on dolphin feet. Black basaltes ; acanthus border round 
 stand. P'estoon ornament. Remarkable signature on bottom, “ Josiah Wedgwood, 
 Etruria, Feb y 2, 1085,” evidently in mistake for 1805. The only other specimen known to 
 be so marked is in the National Collection, Jermyn Street, where it stands correctly, 
 “ Feb y 2, 1805.” Of a late and inferior period. 
 
 Lamp. Black basaltes on base. Height 8|- inches. Floriated ornaments. Female 
 figure seated, well modelled, but the vessel she holds is Saxon, not classical .—Bragg 
 Collection. 
 
 Group 3. Tripod Lamp and Vases. 
 
 Tripod lamp, on low pedestal, for six small lights ; 10 inches. Winged supports. 
 Rayed cover, beading and leafage. A most exquisite specimen in basaltes. 
 
 Vase in black basaltes. Height 10 inches. Heads of satyrs as handles. Wreaths 
 and busts of emperors. A choice specimen, 
 
 Vase in black basaltes. Height 9 inches. Drapery, beading, and acanthus border. 
 Fluted, on square pedestal, with handles, and of exquisite form. Marked, “Wedgwood 
 and Bentley .”—Mayer Collection. 
 
PLATE XXVIII. 
 
 Group i. Bouquetier, Paint-box, and Flower-Basket. 
 
 T) OUQUETIER. Height 5^ inches. Oval form, white basket-work on puce brown 
 ground, pierced cover, coloured to resemble moss. To left, a paint-box; a most rare 
 and desirable example. Height 4 inches. Light black ground, with light buff dots and 
 lines. Lid with tooling, and buff lines rayed to centre. Elegant nob. Within is a per¬ 
 forated tray, with tiny saucers to hold the various colours when ground and moistened. 
 A minute pestle and mortar belong to the box, and the whole gives remarkable evidence 
 of Wedgwood’s attention to and perfection of detail. These paint-boxes were at one time 
 very common and cheap, but are now rarely met with. To right, flower-basket per¬ 
 forated. Height 5| inches. Marble with light puce or rose-colour, gold and white. 
 Wedgwood styled this colouring “ Holy-door marble .”—Bragg Collection. 
 
 Group 2. Escritoires. 
 
 Escritoires or inkstands. Pale blue jasper-white reliefs. Centre—Bridal Inkstand. 
 Height 8^ inches. Subject of reliefs—Marriage of Cupid and Psyche, and trophies of 
 Love and Harmony. Sarcophagus form enriched with drapery and shell ornaments. 
 Pediment, with two ink jars or vases ; with acanthus and leafage borders and ornaments, 
 of late manufacture. To right circular inkstand in saucer or dish. Height 4 inches. 
 Fluted and with helix ornaments. Top forming an elegant candlestick. To left oval 
 inkstand in dish. Height 3^ inches. Columnar taper stand. Helix ornaments and 
 border. These two smaller inkstands are of a good period and most choice .—Bragg 
 Collection. 
 
 Group 3. Vase, Candlesticks, Scent Jar, and Tea-pot. 
 
 Vase on pedestal. Light blue jasper, white relief. Height inches. Subject of 
 relief—Boys at play with butterfly and fruit. Pedestal—wreaths, medallions, and military 
 trophies. Candlesticks, light blue jasper. Height 6 inches. Ornament, spiral leafage 
 and floriation. Scent jar, light blue jasper, quatrefoil ornamentation. Octagon-shaped 
 tea-pot, light blue jasper, white relief. Height 6 inches. Helix border under light 
 floriation springing from base. Beaded medallions of female figures. All these are choice 
 specimens of Wedgwood’s ornamental jasper .—Bragg Collection.