CIRCA 1767

Details

TWO WEDGWOOD CREAMWARE BALUSTER VASES
CIRCA 1767
Each applied with four lion masks issuing floral and leafy swags above stiff acanthus leaves and a gadrooned socle, on domed gadrooned feet (small remnants of gilding remaining, minor losses and chipping to garlands and acanthus, one with short hairline crack to rim, small restuck chip to one lion mask, one with two small glaze chips to upper rim)
16½ in. (42 cm.) high

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 21 November 2006, lot 40.

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Lot Essay

By 1767 Josiah Wedgwood had incorporated a number of designs for a wide-ranging selection of ornamental vases into factory production. Realising their commercial potential he introduced design variants with engine-turning and rouletted decoration, in 1767 he wrote to Thomas Bentley: Vases sell too, even in the rude state they are now, for such They appear when I take a view of what may be done'.^{1<\sup> For a very similar vase, also unmarked, with a domed cover see Gaye Blake Robert, 'To Astonish the World with Wonders', Josiah Wedgwood I 1730-1795', English Ceramic Circle Transactions, Vol. 16, Part 2, 1997, p. 168, no. 10. For the same applied lion mask and swag ornament on a Wedgwood creamware vase of urn shape see Robin Reilly, Wedgwood, London, 1989, Vol. I, p. 349, pl. C6.

1. Josiah Wedgwood to Thomas Bentley, 27 May 1767; E25-18148, cited by Gaye Blake Roberts, ibid., p. 168.}

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