Jasper Ware.—As early as 1773 Wedgwood was experimenting with a view to producing jasper body. It is here that his greatest triumph in the ceramic art was won. Nothing like it had ever been seen in pottery before, and the ware he produced in an endless variety of forms which were termed "ornamental" by him to distinguish them from the queen's ware, or "useful" ware. About 1775—a great date in Wedgwood's history—the jasper ware was perfected, and from 1780 to 1795 is the period when it was at its best, when he poured forth from Etruria, then filled with a highly-trained body of workmen and artists, his jasper ware, exquisite with grace and beauty of form and fascinating in its charm of dainty and subtle colour.
The spirit of classicism was in the air in the days of Wedgwood. Dr. Johnson had imposed his ponderous latinity on the world of letters. Alexander Pope was still writing when Josiah was apprenticed and known already as a "fine thrower." Homer's Iliad and Odyssey had appeared in many editions just prior to Wedgwood's manhood. The statues of naval and military commanders in Westminster Abbey were in Roman costume. The Brothers Adam were in the heyday of their popularity. From sedan chairs to silver-plate their style was the vogue. The classical mouldings, capitals, and niches, the shell flutings and the light garlands in the Adam style are welcome sights in many otherwise dreary streets in London. In furniture, the Adam style is as severe as the French prototypes which had absorbed some of the ancient spirit of Rome and Greece. As early as 1763 Grimm wrote, "For some years past we are beginning to inquire for antique ornaments and forms. The interior and exterior decorations of houses, furniture, materials of dress, work of the goldsmiths, all bear alike the stamp of the Greeks. The fashion passes from architecture to millinery; our ladies have their hair dressed à la Grecque." Men of thought joined in clamouring for simplicity, and Diderot lent his powerful aid in heralding the dawn of the revival of the antique long before the France of Revolution days.
But eyes other than French were fixed on the remote past. The excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii had given a new stimulus to archæological research. In this country Sir William Hamilton, as early as 1765, promoted the publication of the magnificent work, "Greek, Roman, and Etruscan Antiquities," illustrated from his collection. It was a specially valuable exposition of the system and methods and æsthetic value of classic art, especially plastic art; and in promulgating this sumptuous illustrated disquisition on the ancient potter's art Sir William Hamilton laid modern workers in the same field under a heavy debt. Incidentally it may be mentioned that Sir William was the husband of the beautiful Lady Hamilton.
So that in the midst of this eighteenth-century classic revival Josiah Wedgwood was but the child of his age, and, associated in partnership with Bentley, a man of refined and scholarly tastes, he entered into the new spirit with willing mind. Adroitly seizing classic models, Wedgwood in his art adapted all that was most suited to modern requirements. Pope translated Homer into English verse, and Wedgwood translated classic designs into English pottery.
WEDGWOOD JASPER VASE.
Subject—representing the Apotheosis of Virgil; surmounted by Pegasus cover.
By the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons.