If you have anything like a Regency setting—say an arched alcove—you could scarcely have a better setting for a collection of jasper ware.

In case you find the term unfamiliar, this is what a good many people know simply by the name “Wedgwood.” To them it means all those vases, bowls, plaques, trays, boxes and so on in the famous “Wedgwood” blue, also lilac, sage green and other colours, decorated with white reliefs of classical figures. If you are going to collect it, however, it is worth knowing that many other potters besides Wedgwoods made it and also that other types of pottery and china were made by Wedgwoods. So it only seems reasonable to describe it by the name that Josiah Wedgwood himself used for it, after the jasper stone.

A couple of generations ago you had to be pretty well in the millionaire class to be able to afford early pieces of jasper ware. Although this is no longer so, there is still a healthy demand for it, especially from the United States, and this will make it necessary for you to pay anything from ten to fifty pounds for an interesting piece from the eighteenth century.

Antique Collector MagazineBut nowadays, I suppose, most people are interested in jasper ware for its decorative possibilities. They will therefore not be too concerned as to whether a piece dates from in the eighteenth century, or during the revival just before the Great Exhibition of 1851, or even today, in Wedgwood’s new pottery at Barlaston, Staffs., where you can see it being made. Of course, the earlier work shows much finer crafts. manship, especially in the reliefs, and this is usually the only way you can tell the difference between the early wares and those of mid-Victorian times. Today’s products, of course, bear modern marks so with them you know where you are.

Besides the wares already mentioned our alcove will call for candlesticks, tea services, plaques candelabra, table- centre pieces, custard sets, pot-pourri, bulb pots, etc. But as well as these things there are many other items in jasper ware which call for quite different housing and treatment.

There are, for example, hundreds of small medallions, with portrait figures, groups and cameos, sometimes detached from their original setting in furniture and jewellery. These obviously call for arrangement in a large frame, with a background of velvet, either black or in some other colour which sets off the jasper colours: or possibly on one of the rough canvas-like textures popular today.

Then there is a whole class of small jasper ware which calls for the glass cabinet, of the sort one sees in jeweller’s shops. It includes scent bottles, patch and powder boxes, seals, brooches, beads, buttons, buckles and also oddities like watch cases, opera glasses, walking stick heads, fittings for chatelaines, combs, etc.

If you are interested in distinguishing between new and old, you will have to start familiarising yourself with such things as the quality of the body paste, the actual tint, and whether your piece is real jasper (that is, stained throughout the body) or jasper “dip,” where only the outside has been stained. But most of all you will have to be concerned with the workmanship of the figures and other decoration on the white reliefs. These are small pieces of clay, of the same dense vitrified stoneware as the rest of the pieces, which have been pressed out with moulds. In the early days considerable hand-cutting was done afterwards, to make them stand out in sharper relief: the difference between this and more recent work is apparent when you see pieces side by side. The mark WEDGWOOD was used on most of the wares of that factory down to about 189 1, when England was added to comply with the United States Customs markings regulations. Nowadays the modern Barlaston mark is impressed.

As it has already been mentioned, other potters besides Wedgwoods made jasper ware, much of it of equal quality. William Adams, of Greengates, whose name is found impressed on pieces, was an apprentice of Wedgwood, and his blue is more violet in shade than his master’s. Another name often seen is that of John Turner, of Stoke-on-Trent, whose blue has a greeny tinge. There are also approximations of jasper ware, like the products of James Dudson, of Hanley, who applied reliefs to a deep blue glazed ground.

Since a good deal of English jasper ware went overseas, there are plenty of European imitations of it still there. But the only foreign types I have ever seen here are what is called in the trade “French Wedgwood.” It has a sage green ground, and there is a great deal of applied decoration in a style utterly unlike the early classical designs.

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