Object Type
The Staffordshire potter Josiah Wedgwood 1730-1795) copied the shape of this vase from an ancient Greek amphora, originally a type of two-handled vessel for storing wine and oil. Wedgwood's version is purely decorative, and was probably displayed on a domestic mantelpiece or in a private library. Both front and back are finely painted with figure scenes, so the vase was probably intended to be seen from both sides or displayed in front of an overmantel mirror.

Materials & Making
The vase is made of Black Basalt. Wedgwood developed both the Basalt pottery and the type of decoration used here in imitation of ancient Greek 'red figure pottery'. Unlike the Greek originals, the decoration on Wedgwood's Black Basalt is painted in red on the black pottery. He called this type of painting 'encaustic', a term that was originally used for an ancient Greek and Roman technique of painting in which pigments are combined with hot wax. Wedgwood's encaustic decoration was painted in a mixture of enamel pigments and slip (a mixture of clay and water), and then fired onto the surface.

Design & Designing
The figure compositions are copied from vases illustrated in the first two volumes of Sir William Hamilton's Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities (1766-1767 and 1770).