To mark the successful opening of the new Etruria factory Wedgwood and his business partner Thomas Bentley 'threw' six vases to mark the occasion. Transfer of production from Burslem to Etruria had taken place gradually between November 1768 and the following spring. On 13th June 1769 the new ornamental works were formally declared open. The occasion was celebrated with Josiah personally 'throwing' six vases, with Thomas Bentley turning the wheel. Josiah used his newly-perfected Black Basalt stoneware body to create these celebratory pieces.
After the pieces had been turned and fired the vases were sent to the London decorating studios to be painted in encaustic enamel colours. On one side the vases were decorated with ‘Hercules in the Garden of Hesperides’ copied from plate 129 in the first volume of the catalogue of Sir William Hamilton’s renowned collection of antiquities. The reverse of the vases was decorated with an inscription and the date – 13th June 1769. The inscription, painted in red enamel, was the latin motto ‘Artes Etruriae Renascuntur’ – the Arts of Etruria are Reborn.
Josiah wrote to Bentley in November 1769 commenting that these vases ‘shod. be finished as high as you please, but not sold, they being the first fruits of Etruria’. The figurative decoration was probably the work of William Hopkins Craft, one of the most-skilled painters to be employed by Wedgwood and Bentley in London, while David Rhodes, the manager of the London decorating works, probably painted the inscription and borders.
Of the six vases originally 'thrown', only four survived the firing and decorating processes. This vase is one of two in the Wedgwood Museum’s collection.A third one has recently been acquired for The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent and the fourth is owned by the Wedgwood Family.