Flower pot - With the figures of the nine Muses

The bulging body stands on a short foot its broad top is lined with a slightly slanted, standing rim. The bright white relief ornaments create a fine light-and-shadow effect on the sky-blue base. The body presents the nine muses, standing independently, far from each other, on the foot line that runs along the bottom of the body. They are surmounted by nine masks and the attributes of Night of muses Melpomene and Thalia. A detailed, refined garland of roses and flowers hang down from their ram horns. A larger vine foliage with tendrils and berries runs along the top rim.

This flower pot is a typical and evergreen example of jasperware, which was the most popular and - considering the history of ceramics - the most significant invention of Josiah Wedgwood. He developed the material, a fine, artificial, white but colourable clay fired at high fire (c. 1250 C°), and the various techniques of decoration (cast covering layer, partly applied covering layer, inlay, application) between 1771 and 1774. Owing to the extreme popularity, the large family of various ornaments and medals have continuously been produced with this technique, and are still called jasperware. This type of decoration has still preserved a classicizing trait, and even today they use the motifs created between 1770 and 1800, though with certain modifications. The figures of the muses in this case are rather simplified compared to the 18th century illustrations, where they are depicted in groups, wearing floating clothes and making broad gestures.