Mug

Staffordshire

About 1740-1750

This mug was made using the process of slip casting. Slip is liquid clay used in the manufacture of ceramics. Slip casting involves forming ceramics using slip and a porous mold, usually made of plaster of Paris. Slip is poured into the mold and allowed to set as it coats the walls of the mold. The excess is then poured out, leaving a thin-walled hollow form. This is allowed to harden, and the mold is removed. The piece can then be fired as usual.

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Dress sword, or rapier, with scabbard, the blade of steel and etched in a pattern of scrolling foliage, the hilt of silver, the guard and pommel elaborately engraved in a floral and strapwork pattern, the grip and pommel set with small Wedgwood blue and white jasperware medallions in ropework mounts, four on each side with on side 1) Jupiter or a young warrior; Medea rejuvenating the head of Jason’s father; classical male figure; Minerva; and on side 2) unidentified; Andromache mourning the death of Hector; Demeter searching for her daughter Persephone; Bacchanalian scene; the sewn parchment scabbard with steel tip and mouthpiece, the mouthpiece set with an oval blue and white jasperware medallion with the Muses of painting and poetry mourning the death of the Swiss poet Solomon Gessner (1720-88).
On the square base, the figure of a female vintner in Rhenish costume with vat and basket.
Oval blue jasper medallion with white relief profile portrait of Thomas Bentley (1730-1780) Liverpool merchant and business partner of Josiah Wedgwood in the manufacture and experiment of Ornamental ware.Born at Scropton, Derbyshire. Bentley was introduced to Josiah Wedgwood by Dr. Matthew Turner when Josiah was bedridden in Liverpool in 1762. They seem to have been on terns of friendship from the first. Bentley was, at this time, in partnership with Samuel Boardman of Liverpool, a general merchant, and the firm became Wedgwood’s agent.Bentley agreed to become Wedgwood’s partner in 1767 for the manufacture of ornamental wares, the partnership deeds being signed in 1769, a few weeks after the opening of the Etruria factory. Bentley settled in London to take charge of the showrooms and decorating studio there, and as a man of widely ranging interests he was able to meet and influence fashionable society to a point where the showrooms became a social centre. Bentley always found difficulty in dealing with subordinates, and staffing troubles were common.Bentley was, however, essential to the design, production and sale of the ornamental wares, and Wedgwood constantly consulted him, and referred to him for approval. In 1772 Bentley married his second wife, Mary Stamford of Derby. He lived at Chelsea from 1769 to 1774. He then removed to the Greek Street showrooms, and from there, in 1777, to Turnham Green, where he remained till his death in 1780.No one ever replaced him as a friend and colleague. A very large number of Wedgwood’s surviving letters are addressed to Bentley on business and family problems, but hardly any of Bentley’s own letters have survived, so his opinions on the subjects discussed have to be deduced from what Wedgwood has to stay.
Small round brooch comprised of a double-sided circular band of dark blue jasperware set into a mount of silver, the band decorated on both sides with small white jasper reliefs of the signs of the zodiac, the center part loosely mounted and likewise set in a silver mount and containing a lock of Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson's hair (reputedly), along with three small pearls, and strands of gold twine under glass, the reverse contains a piece of white grosgrain fabric under glass in the center, with a simple pin closure.