The subject of decoration is Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides, and was a forerunner of those classical pieces which have made Wedgwood as honoured a name in Europe as that of Palissy the Frenchman, of Lucca del Robbia the Italian, or of Böttcher the German.
The range of the Wedgwood ware may be gathered from the fact that in one of the catalogues the productions are divided into twenty distinct classes. It is not our intention to enumerate these, but they comprised series of medals and medallions of the Cæsars, the Roman emperors, the heads of the Popes (consisting of no less than two hundred and fifty-three medallions), a hundred heads of the kings of England and France, together with “heads of illustrious moderns.” In addition to these there were admirable busts, some being twenty-five inches in height, of Lord Chatham, Cornelius De Witt, John De Witt, Plato, and many more. These were in black basaltes, durable as marble. Lamps and candelabra of antique forms were produced from “two shillings apiece to five guineas.”
In passing, we may refer to the above fact to show why Wedgwood or any other ware varies in value so much at the present day. Obviously a two-shilling lamp will not be as valuable as a five-guinea one. Readers learn that certain china has fetched a large price in the auction-room. Sometimes they erroneously infer that other china they possess, which bears the mark of the same factory, is equally valuable. The above will point the moral of the story. It is a fact that cannot be too often insisted upon that the great factories turned out productions by the ton, many of them intended for ordinary everyday use, and though bearing their mark, yet not valuable from the collector’s point of view.
There are, of course, other reasons why china is or is not valuable, but this is a very solid reason too often overlooked. To be able to differentiate the good from the bad, “that is the question.” To know that a specimen is good is one thing, to give the reason why is another. When the reader begins to do this he or she is already a connoisseur.
In order to give a fairly proportionate idea of what Wedgwood ware is, we quote a list and description of six different kinds of ware in his own words:—
“1. A terra-cotta; resembling porphyry, granite Egyptian, pebble, and other beautiful stones of the silicious or crystalline order.
WEDGWOOD TERRA-COTTA VASES
In Museum at Etruria.