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Vase and cover
Wedgwood - Enlarge image
Vase and cover
- Place of origin:
Etruria, England (made)
- Date:
ca. 1850 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Wedgwood (designer and maker)
- Materials and Techniques:
Blue Jasper dip, with white cameo decoration
- Credit Line:
Transferred from the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street
- Museum number:
2793 to C-1901
- Gallery location:
British Galleries, room 122f, case 3
Object Type
This tall vase and pedestal are very much in the manner of the Wedgwood factory's neo-classical-style jasper ware. They are not, however,made with the traditional solid jasper body stained blue, but from ordinary stoneware, coated with a dip of blue jasper.
Materials & Making
Jasper was a dense white stoneware stained in a wide choice of colours. It was invented by Josiah Wedgwood in the 1770s. It took him over 5000 experiments, lasting several years, to perfect his method and he then used it to produce a large variety of vessels as well as plaques and even jewellery. Strangely, at the beginning of the 19th century, for various reasons, the factory apparently lost the ability to make large objects from jasper. There is no record of jasper vase production between 1817 and 1845, and those vases which were made in the first half of the century, such as this one, were just dipped in jasper. In 1860, after about fifteen years of experiment, the solid jasper body was reintroduced into general production.
Subject Depicted
The scene on the vase represents a Sacrifice to Cupid 'from the antique' according to the catalogue of the Great Exhibition. On one side, a priest follows a man with an axe over his shoulder who leads a bull to Cupid's temple. On the other side , a boy plays a double flute while a kneeling man gathers fruit in a basket. Behind them is a brazier and a child with a garland.
