Josiah Wedgwood's wares.—It will be seen, in the enumeration of the various classes of ware which were produced by him, in what respect he added improvements which in their turn were improved upon by later potters, and to what extent his productions were entirely original, adding a new note in English pottery, creating an entire school, and leaving the mark of his genius on his successors for nearly a century.
Variegated ware.—The agate, the cauliflower, and melon ware, the clouded and mottled glaze, and the various imitations of marbling, came into vogue in the days of Whieldon. But Wedgwood was more ambitious in his designs. We have already seen, in dealing with Whieldon ware, how the "solid" agate ware was produced by means of fine layers of clays of different colours, which after careful manipulation produced a series of waves resembling the natural ornamentation of the stone. Wedgwood also employed "surface" colouring for this variegated ware, the body being of the common cream-coloured earthenware and the veining and mottling being applied to the surface. In such pieces the handles and the plinths were usually oil gilded; later he used a white semi-porcelain for plinths of such ware.
Two agate vases and ewers marked "Wedgwood and Bentley" belong to the period 1768 to 1780. The plinths of the agate vases show the white undecorated body. Wedgwood imitated Egyptian pebble, jasper, porphyry, and various kinds of granite speckled with grey, black, white, or green. Much of this is a flight higher than the agate ware.
Black basalt Ware.—In this ware, which was termed "Egyptian black," Wedgwood triumphed over his predecessors. We know the black ware made by Elers and by Twyford (two fine black Twyford teapots are in the Hanley Museum), but the ware into which Wedgwood infused his genius is worthy to be called what he termed it—"black porcelaine." With its rich black, smooth surface it was capable of varied use, including useful as well as ornamental ware. In the former, we find tea services and coffee or chocolate pots strictly adopting the severe Queen Anne silver shapes, and in vases he followed bronze prototypes. See illustration ([p. 241]) of two Black basalt Teapots. It was used in fine manner for life-size busts and for medallion portraits of "illustrious Ancients and Moderns."
This basalt ware Wedgwood further used in combination with other processes. He imitated the ancient Greek vase paintings by decorating the black surface with unglazed colours, or he had ornaments in relief in red. Another replica of classic art was his simulation of bronze, and this black ware formed the groundwork to which he added the bronze metallic colouring in his rare bronze examples.
The two black basalt ewers, entitled Wine and Water, designed by Flaxman, are well known. It is at once evident that they owe no inconsiderable debt to the metal worker. It requires no great stretch of imagination to believe them to be in bronze. Technically, as specimens of earthenware, they are perfect, but it is open to question whether the potter has not trespassed on the domain of the worker in metal. There are canons which govern the art of pottery; form and ornamentation strictly appropriate in metal are utterly unfitted for the worker in clay. Branched candelabra are false in porcelain though extremely beautiful in silver. In passing this criticism, which applies to some of Wedgwood's work, we are incidentally brushing aside the contention of those critics who find him unoriginal. As a matter of fact he was so original and so responsive to the suggestion of allied arts that he often undertook the creation of pieces in his kilns the like of which no potter had ever attempted before.
Red Ware.—It is not to be supposed that Wedgwood would allow the fine red Elers ware to stand as representative of the uttermost that Staffordshire had produced without attempting to emulate this early ware. Accordingly, we find in what he terms his rosso antico, a red ware of extraordinary beauty. Some of the engine-turned pieces of this red ware are exceptionally fine. There is in the Hanley Museum a coffee-pot of great technical and æsthetic value. Wine-coolers and other useful creations, with classic ornamentation in relief, show the wide range of this red terra-cotta or unglazed ware. The Elers style was simple, with applied stamped ornament of small dimensions and Oriental rather than classical in motif. The red stoneware of Böttcher, of Dresden, was by this time fairly well known, and Wedgwood had both Elers and Böttcher to serve as models, although he does not seem to have employed this red ware to any great extent. Nor did Wedgwood confine himself to red in this type of ware; he made chocolate-coloured examples, and in his cane-coloured and bamboo ware he made articles for domestic use, such as tea and coffee services as well as mugs and jugs of this type, which differed from the black basalt inasmuch as the basalt was an especially hard body, whereas these others were porous and soft. As was usual with Wedgwood, not only did he have a series of wares of different colours, but he often worked with a combination of these colours in the same piece.
Cream Ware.—Something must be said concerning the development of cream ware before it can be accurately determined how much Staffordshire was indebted to Wedgwood for its development. At the outset it must be granted that he did not invent the ware. But he improved it. Similarly it was further improved subsequent to his day by other potters who made it finer and whiter.
But to this day, a hundred and fifty years after the introduction of this cream ware, his descendants, still trading under the name of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, produce this cream ware exactly as it was then produced. Dinner services are made with Flaxman's designs on the border, essentially English in character and feeling. Last year Messrs. James Powell and Sons, of the Whitefriars Glass Works, near the Temple, which were flourishing in 1710, and still continue to produce the finest glass in England, held an exhibition of Wedgwood ware. Considerable interest was drawn to the subject of this revival of the old patterns of 1775 from the designs of Josiah Wedgwood's band of artists. Those connoisseurs who love old furniture and old eighteenth-century glass ware, as made by Messrs. Powell, welcomed the Wedgwood queen's ware designs as being something eminently fitted to strike the right note of harmony, and accordingly, by arrangement with the firm at Etruria, some of the finest patterns of the old ware are exclusively made for Messrs. Powell. The English dinner table may now be as English as it was in Georgian days, and, happily, this æsthetic revival has met with a warm response by the patronage of the royal family, the nobility, and by all those who love the old-world charm of the domestic art of our forefathers.
Before Wedgwood's day cream ware was made. Astbury used an addition of white clay and flint to his bodies about 1720. In 1726 the grinding of flint stones into powder for the potters' use became so important that Thomas Benson took out a patent for a machine to do this. In 1750 we find cream ware being largely made. Aaron Wedgwood and William Littler introduced about this time a fluid lead glaze instead of the old manner of using powdered galena (native sulphide of lead). Body and glaze were at this period fired at one operation. Enoch Booth improved this by revolutionising the method of glazing. He fired the pieces to a biscuit state and then dipped them in this fluid lead glaze (ground flint and white lead), and refired them at a lower temperature. At this date two other potters, Warburton (of Hot Lane) and Baddeley (of Shelton), followed Booth's practice, and cream ware may be said to have been in a fairly flourishing condition.