Josiah Wedgwood & the Wedgwood Pottery
By Paul H. Lauer, New England p4A.com representative
Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795), with generations of potters behind him and generations to come, finished his apprenticeship and entered into business with one of the best potters of the time, Thomas Whieldon, in the early 1750′s for five years, producing among other things, the green glaze and mottled glaze tableware for which the partnership became known.
In 1768, Wedgwood went into partnership with Thomas Bentley for the manufacture of “ornamental wares” including cameos, intaglios, large tablets or bas-relief for use as chimney and frieze decoration, vases, busts, statues, lamps, candelabras, tea and coffee services and other small items not fitting into the category of “useful wares”. The latter are defined as tableware items useful as at meals, those he produced in partnership with his cousin Thomas Wedgwood.
The Wedgwood and Bentley period, 1768-1780 produced the finest of the firm’s wares and the innovation, invention and craftsmanship coming out of that period has never been duplicated even though the company is still active and producing pottery and porcelain daily.
The factory has produced numerous varieties of ware which can be classified under the headings of Creamware (1759), Rosso Antico (1765), Basalt (1768), Caneware (1770), Jasper (1774), Pearlware (1779), Drabware (1800), Bone China (1812), Parian (1848), and Majolica (1860). Most of these wares remain in continuous production today.
Wedgwood was one of the first potters in England to consistently mark his production, from which two benefits to the collector spring. First, other than very rare exceptions (such as numbered, 1st edition Portland Vases and trial pieces not intended to be sold) all Wedgwood is marked, either impressed or printed under glaze, with the mark in use at the time of production. No paper labels were used. Therefore, the admonition “if it isn’t marked, it isn’t Wedgwood,” works, for all practical purposes, all the time. Second, because the subject has been extensively studied and because the factory itself kept excellent records, the form of the mark or marks lead readily in most cases to identification of the period of manufacture.