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Ewer
Jacques Stella, born 1596 - died 1657 - Enlarge image
Ewer
- Place of origin:
Etruria, England (made)
- Date:
1769-1780 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Jacques Stella, born 1596 - died 1657 (after, designer)
Wedgwood (manufacturer) - Materials and Techniques:
Black basalt with applied and moulded decoration in relief
- Credit Line:
Transferred from the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street
- Museum number:
2398-1901
- Gallery location:
British Galleries, room 118d, case 2
Object Type
The vase was purely decorative and would have been displayed in a domestic interior, possibly on a mantelpiece, where it may have been flanked by other, smaller vases.
Design & Designing
Josiah Wedgwood's move into vase production coincided with the fashionable world taking up the vase as a symbol of the new 'antique' style. The demand for 'antique' vases was so great that, in addition to copying surviving Classical antiquities, manufacturers took designs from prints of the 17th and 18th centuries. Some of these prints were highly fanciful inventions, which were not seriously intended as models for production. Wedgwood adapted the design here from the Livre de Vases put together by the French painter Jacques Stella (1596-1657). Wedgwood further dramatised Stella's design by adding scales to the fish tail and increasing the height of the plinth. He described Stella's book, published in 1667, as 'an admirable one indeed', and commented that 'many good things may be made out of [it]'. Wedgwood based at least four of his vase shapes on designs by Stella.
Materials & Making
The vase is made of Black Basalt, one of several types of pottery that Wedgwood (1730-1795) introduced or refined. The colour came from 'Carr', an oxide of iron suspended in water that had flowed through coal seams and mines.
