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2011 Number 27

Published September 2015

©2015 by The Wedgwood Society of New York, ISSN 1043-3317

  • President's Letter
  • An Unrecorded Plate from “The Frog Service” made for Catherine the Great of Russia by Anne Forschler-Tarrasch
  • The Rarest Wedgwood Cup and Saucer in the World? by Robin Emmerson
  • The Wedgwood Caneware Service at Woburn Abbey by David M. Pendergast
  • A Wedgwood Canopic Vase in The National Gallery of Victoria by Amanda Dunsmore
  • Inkstains by David M. Pendergast
  • Prost! German Drinking Vessels in the Milwaukee Art Museum by Catherine Sawinski
  • A Celebration of Edgefield Pottery by Bettis C. Rainsford and Arthur F. Goldberg
  • Reversing the Flow of Mighty Rivers: A Caughley Mistake by Robert Harrison
  • Book Review:
    The Warda Stevens Stout Collection: A History of Eighteenth-Century German Porcelain
    By Christina H. Nelson and Letitia Roberts

Cover Image

On the cover: A Wedgwood perfume flask, white on blue jasper and silver, c. 1790, 2" (5.1 cm) h., Collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art; the Dwight and Lucille Beeson Wedgwood Collection 1977.75. The flask bears on one side a portrait of Catherine the Great, empress of Russia, in the guise of Minerva, and on the other a portrait of a gentleman who is possibly William V, Prince of Orange. William V (1748-1806) was the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. In 1795, after the establishment of a French-style revolutionary regime in Holland, he went into exile in England. Catherine the Great (1729-1796) was one of the greatest rulers of her adopted Russia, expanding its territory, notably to the south, widening its horizons to incorporate influences from western Europe, and becoming a great patron of the arts – hence, perhaps, her depiction here as Minerva. In the world of ceramics, she encouraged the manufacture of porcelain in Russia, and is of course well-known as a major customer of Josiah Wedgwood, who manufactured the huge and distinctive “Frog Service” in painted creamware, made for Catherine’s La Grenouillière. Anne Forschler-Tarrasch discusses an unrecorded plate from this service.


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