Trinket box

Wedgwood

1960

  • Titles Trinket box (Descriptive)
  • Artist Wedgwood, England, est. 1759
  • Medium stoneware (jasperware)
  • Dimensions 1 3/4 × 3 9/16 × 1 3/16 in. (4.5 × 9 × 3 cm)
  • Credit Line Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; The Buten Wedgwood Collection, gift through the Wedgwood Society of New York, AFI.1913.2008a-b
  • Work Type box with cover
  • Classification Containers

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Octagonal blue jasper plaque with white relief figure of Zephyr with garland, Josiah Wedgwood made these medallions in a range of sizes. According to his printed sale catalogue of 1779, the ones of this size were especially suitable 'for inlaying in fine Cabinets, Writing-Tables, Bookcases [etc] of which they form the most beautiful enrichment at moderate Expence.' They were also mounted on wooden and ivory tea canisters, on small boxes for snuff, patches, toothpicks and cards, and were incorporated into cut-steel brooches, bracelets and other jewellery.
Self-framed oval plaque of black basalt molded in relief illustrating the attack on Niobe, a mortal of royal blood and mother of seven sons and seven daughters, and her children, on the lower left a group of young women cringe and cover themselves as they attempt to flee Artemis and Apollo on clouds above attacking them with bows and arrows at the direction of their mother, the demi-goddess Leto, while an older woman, Niobe, with a small child on her lap rests on a rocky surface, as one of the young women tries to help her up, on the right male riders fall to the rocks from their horses in fatal agony.
Large rectangular tablet of white jasper with olive green jasper dip and molded and applied relief decoration of white jasper, the scene a "Sacrifice to Love" in which a small winged Cupid stands atop a pedestal draped with garlands beneath a temple while a procession of figures leads a sacrificial bull to him, to the right of the processional stands a small piper in front of a tree, a man kneels to reach a basket of flowers while behind him an altar burns, to the far right stands the figure of a draped female holding a bird aloft on her finger while a small Putti holding a floral wreath looks on.
Green, light blue and white with eight dancing figures; framed