Perseus and Andromeda

Wedgwood

About 1780

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Obverse: Female figure with banner. Reverse is blank.
Oval black basalt medallion with relief portrait of John Dryden (1631-1700) facing right. John Dryden was born in Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire the eldest of fourteen children. In 1650 Dryden went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied the standard curriculum of classics, rhetoric, and mathematics. He graduated in 1654 with his BA, graduating top of the list for Trinity that year. Dryden returned to London during the Protectorate, where he obtained work with Cromwell's secretary of state, John Thurloe. This later helped him publish his first poem, Heroic Stanzas (1658), a eulogy on Cromwell's death which is cautious and prudent in its emotional display.
Round dinner plate of caneware in the concave shape decorated in the "Nerots" pattern, the border with a scalloped edge in blue underglaze enamel with a modified fish scale pattern likewise in blue at the indentations, the center with an oval wreath of stylized green flowers and blue berries with six bright red birds resting on it, with six small line-drawn butterflies scattered about.
Horizontal oval dark blue jasper medallion with white relief figure of a child sitting by a basket of fruit, set in brass frame with ring