Wedgwood and Beyond: English Ceramics from the Starr Collection
Wedgwood and Beyond: English Ceramics from the Starr Collection
A WEDGWOOD BLACK BASALT CIRCULAR PLAQUE OF A BACCHANALIAN DANCER 19TH CENTURY
Auction Closed
October 23, 06:38 PM GMT
Estimate
2,000 - 3,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
A WEDGWOOD BLACK BASALT CIRCULAR PLAQUE OF A BACCHANALIAN DANCER 19TH CENTURY
from the 'Herculaneum Figures' series, molded in high relief with a male figure holding a torch in one hand and a spearhead in the other, impressed uppercase WEDGWOOD, in ebonized wood frame.
Diameter of plaque 11 in.
22.5 cm
Christie's East New York, January 26, 1987, lot 196
Based on a fresco found at Herculaneum, an engraving of this figure can be found in Volume 2 of Le Antichità di Ercolano Esposte, Naples, 1757-92, beneath an engraving of the Centaur Chiron teaching Achilles to play a lyre. The publication provided an important source for the neo-classical influences of 18th century design in Europe, including the Wedgwood manufactory. The present plaque was first listed in Wedgwood and Bentley's 1773 catalogue. A blue-dipped jasper example is in The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, obj. no. 19063, illustrated in Lydia Lakhova, 'The Wedgwood Exhibition at the Imperial Academy of Arts (St. Petersburg), Ars Ceramica, No. 9, 1992, p. 24, fig. 4.