Wedgwood Ware
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Wedgwood Ware |
English stoneware, including creamware, black basaltes, and
jasperware, made by the Staffordshire factories originally established by Josiah
Wedgwood at Burslem, at
Etruria, and finally at Barlaston,
all in Staffordshire.
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In the decade of its first production, the 1760s,
Wedgwood ware attained a world market, which it continues to hold. Wedgwood
perfected cream-coloured earthenware (which had been improved earlier in the
century by other potters) called creamware, or Queen's
ware in consequence of royal patronage. Mass-produced, it was nevertheless
of high quality, being light, durable, and tasteful both in its shapes and in
its decoration, which was often in the popular Neoclassical style. It filled a
long-felt need for good tableware that the middle class could afford, and it
fixed for two centuries the prevailing taste for variants of cream-coloured
domestic ware. Porcelain and tin-glazed earthenware factories both in England
and abroad suffered from competition with Wedgwood's creamware. Surviving
factories switched from the manufacture of tin-glazed ware, which died out, to
the production of creamware.
The revolution wrought by Wedgwood in the industry was
helped by further factors: the act of 1763 that extended the Liverpool turnpike
road to Burslem, thereby accelerating the transport both of raw materials from
other parts of England and of the wares to their destination; and the invention
by John Sadler and Guy Green in Liverpool in 1755 of transfer printing on
pottery. Wedgwood purchased the right to use the technique in 1763, enabling the
decoration to be done by comparatively unskilled workers. More elaborate and
costly Wedgwood services, however, were decorated by hand.
While creamware was the staple product, Wedgwood
fulfilled the demands of mid-18th-century antiquarian taste by developing, in
1768, a black, unglazed stoneware of fine texture called black
basalt. Hard enough to strike sparks on contact with steel, it had a mat
finish after firing but could be polished and faceted, making it ideal for
imitating antique and Renaissance objects. Basalt seals, plaques, busts, and
jewellery were produced as well as vases, which were sometimes painted with
special enamel colours (called encaustic) to imitate
Greek red-figure vases.
Also adapted to the Neoclassical taste was Wedgwood's jasperware,
introduced in 1775, a white, matte, unglazed stoneware resembling biscuit
porcelain and having ornamental potentialities similar to basalt. It could,
moreover, be stained many colours, from pale pastels (such as the famous pale
blue) to stronger tints.
Ornaments in white, made separately in moulds, were
applied to the body of the piece; the contrast of white on a coloured ground
thus achieved was used in imitation of antique cameos of hardstone and glass (in
which portions of the white top layer of glass are cut away, leaving the white
figure in relief against the coloured underlayer). Employing outstanding artists
of the day, such as the sculptor John Flaxman, Wedgwood copied innumerable
antique designs, including the Roman Portland Vase. Jasperware was imitated in
other European factories, notably at Sèvres.
Together with other Wedgwood wares, basalt and
jasperware are still produced in both old and modern designs at the Wedgwood
factory, which moved to Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, in 1940.
questions / comments? email Steve Birks steveb@netcentral.co.uk
