Inspired by an antique oil lamp, this form is recorded as no. 138 in Wedgwood’s first ‘Shape Book’. The winged-lion monopod supports, and triangular base were probably based on plate 17 of Pierre François Basan’s, Recueil d’antiquités romaines, ou, Voyage d’Italie, of 1771, one of the books owned by Wedgwood and Bentley.

Pierre François Basan’s, Recueil d’antiquités romaines, ou, Voyage d’Italie, plate. 17

The finial formed as three sybils was used as early as 1773-74 when it was used on the creamware glaciers supplied to Catherine the Great in the Frog Service (Young 1995, pl. 25).

The bowl with richly moulded scrolling foliage on the underside is based on an ancient Greek bronze hanging lamp of about 400 B.C. and is also found on some of the most elaborate so-called ‘Michelangelo lamps’ (Victoria and Albert Museum 4790&A-1901, ill.: Grant 1910, plate XII, 1)

Condition:
The three sybils reattached to cover, one wing cleanly cracked and reattached

Provenance:
Mones Collection (labels)
Skinner, Boston, 11 January 2014, sale 2698B, lot 273
Jeffrey Milkins Collection, no. 727

Exhibitions:
Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina, ‘Classic Black: The Basalt Sculpture of Wedgwood and His Contemporaries’, 9 February 2020 – 3 January 2021, no. 83

References:
For a similar example, see The Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences, Sydney, Australia, no. 85/704-12

Timothy Clifford, ‘Some English Ceramic Vases and their Sources’, Transactions English Ceramic Circle, 10, pt. 3, 1978, pl. 77b

Pierre François Basan’s, Recueil d’antiquités romaines, ou, Voyage d’Italie, (A Paris: Chez Basan [1771?])

Colonel Maurice H. Grant, Makers of Black Basaltes, first published 1910

Young, Hilary (ed.). The Genius of Wedgwood. London, (Victoria & Albert Museum, 1995)

Literature:
Brian D Gallagher, Classic Black: The Basalt Sculpture of Wedgwood and His Contemporaries, exhibition catalogue (Mint Museum of Art, 2020), pp. 226-227, no. 83

Price: £14,500