Archive for Wedgwood
History of Wedgwood Jasper cameo jewellery
Posted by: | CommentsI have been lucky to acquire quire a collection of vintage Wedgwood jasper jewellery mostly in its original boxes. One of these retained the original leaflet from Wedgwood giving a little on the history an care of Jasper jewellery. Since my last blog post touched on this subject I thought you would like to see what it had to say: Read More→
Wedgwood Jasper Cupids for Valentines Day
Posted by: | Comments
Cupid Kneeling
On theme of Vintage for Valentines day- I have just noticed how often Wedgwood used Cupid as a motif applied to Wedgwoods jasper ware. There are examples of Cupid in all sorts of poses including Cupid Kneeling, Cupid asleep and Cupid pretending to be oracle to name just a few.
So just who was Cupid? According to Wiki :
In Roman mythology, Cupid (Latin cupido) is the god of erotic love and beauty. He is also known by another one of his Latin names, Amor (cognate with Kama).In popular culture Cupid is frequently shown shooting his bow to inspire romantic love, often as an icon of Valentine’s Day. The more common holiday representation of Cupid is a putto with a bow and arrow. Sometimes the arrow will have a heart for its tip. Cupid is most often seen either nude or diapered. Cupid is sometimes blindfolded, as in the expression “love is blind. Modern reinterpretations of the Cupid character may leave off traditional details of the character, but the character’s main purpose generally remains to help or make people fall in love or possibly engage in physical intimacy.
The picture above shows a silver ring set with a Wedgwood jasper Cameo featuring Cupid Kneeling – antiquesavenue antique shop offers a range of Wedgwood cupids set into jewellery and into trinket trays
News – Wedgwood call in administrators
Posted by: | CommentsSad new today from Wedgwood, according to the BBC and the Times newspapers they have appointed Administrators for Receivership. The brands which antique collectors know and love include Wedgwood, Royal Doulton and Waterford Crystal. It would be such a shame to see these companies close – over the last 250 years they have produced many of the antique and collectable pieces of pottery, porcelain and glass which we love to collect these days.
They are hoping that a buyer can be found for the businesses but would it be the same manufacturing were all moved abroad and just the name remains ?
What are the implications for collectors? Well if they close down and there is no more production in the UK and Ireland we could see a gradual price rise of more recent items such as modern Wedgwood Jasper and in replacement table ware items. Perhaps its is worth keeping an eye on this news and certainly not selling our Wedgwood, Royal Doulton and Waterford crystal off at the moment?
Royal Doulton New Year Angel Bell
What am I ? – antiques object identification
Posted by: | Comments
Mystery object
The first in an occasional series of mini articles I will be writing on identifying your antiques. Antique dealers are often faces with strange items they dont recognise – things from the past which are not often seen today. Before we can work out a value we have to know what it is. Should I by this item? what can I tell my customers about this ? So antiques object identification , knowing what and item is, is quite important to me.
This piece is made of porcelain and has the Wedgwood backstamp dating from the very early 1900s, it is prettily decorated and so you can guess that is was for use by a lady. This is a small object, quite delicate and not for heavy use. Any ideas?
Here is is again showing its original intended use as a ring tree:
Wedgwood Ring Tree
Wedgwood Jasper Ware – dating from the backstamps
Posted by: | CommentsI have introduced Wedgwood Jasper ware in previous posts. Todays blog is about telling how old your piece of Wedgwood Jasper from the marks impressed on the base. Wiki has the following entry which is in line with my thinking:
Before 1860: Mark is “Wedgwood”. Usually accompanied by other potter markings and a single letter.
After 1860: A three-letter mark represents in order, the month, the potter, and the year. The year code starts mid-alphabet with the letter “O” for 1860, the letter “P” for 1861, etc., returning to “A” after “Z”. For certain letters there are two possible year dates.
1891-1908: Marks are “Wedgwood”, “England”, separated.
1908-1969: Marks are “Wedgwood”, “Made in England”, separated, or “Wedgwood England” on small objects like thimbles.
1970-present: Mark is “Wedgwood Made in England” as single stamp
In addition to these marks I find that pieces which date fromthe 20th century often have a 2 digit number which I believe is the year which should be prefixed by 19 eg “56″ is 1956. Sometimes you are lucky enough to find pieces which commemorate specific dates and events which helps us date silmilar items from that time.
Wedgwood pottery – Blue Jasper Ware
Posted by: | CommentsWedgwood have made Blue Jasper pottery since the 1800s. Over its history is has changed sometimes having a solid blue colour “sprigged ” with with reliefs and at other times the blue is solid. There are also variations in the blue from a wonderful deep Royal Blue to a much paler almost baby blue. Antique pieces can be very valuable fetching several hundreds of pounds each whilst newer pieces of Wedgwood jasper can be found for less than £10.
The reliefs tend to have classical inspirations – I am in the process of cataloguing them and hope to add a list here soon. Do you havee any rare examples you could send in photos of to add here?
This Wedgwood Blue Jasper Ware comes in all sorts of forms: Vases, trays, lidded boxes, candlesticks thimbles and even table ware. Blue Jasper miniatures are especially popular with collectors.
Wedgwood has also made Jasper Ware in many other colours but the Blue endures as the most popular and the colour it is produced in today is known as “Wedgwood blue”.
When purchasing a piece of Wedgwood Jasper do take care to look beneath the pot. Not all Jasperware was made by Wedgwood and you need to see the impressed manufacturers trade mark to be sure who made it.
There is lots of Wedgwood Jasper to buy on antiquesavenue.co.uk . Here are a few examples as a preview:
-
- Antique Wedgwood jasper urn
-
- Wedwood Jasper Desk Stand
-
- Wedgwood blue Jasper Jug
Wedgwood Jasper Cameo Jewellery
Posted by: | Comments
Wedgwood has been setting small blue jasper pottery cameos into Jewellery since the 19th Century. These pices are quite collectable with a wide range of pieces available for both Ladies ( rings, pendants, brooches and earrings) and also for gents where I have seen cuff links, stick / lapel pins and tie pins. Here are a few examples:
