Modelled by John Flaxman Senior, oviform, moulded in relief with Triton seated before a pierced entwined handle, encircling a wave-moulded neck and holding on to a mask of a stylised sea monster, suspending swags of rushes, the lower part gadrooned, on a square base moulded with anthemion palmettes
16 in. (40.7 cm.) high

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Lot Essay

This ewer and its pair, emblematic of Water and Wine and known as 'Sacred to Neptune and Bacchus' were modelled by John Flaxman Senior (1726–1795). As a modeller and maker of plaster casts, Flaxman supplied a plaster model of 'a pair of vases, one with a Satyr & the other with a Triton Handle' at a cost of £3.3' (L1.204) to Wedgwood in 1775, see Robin Reilly, Wedgwood, Vol. I, London, 1989, p. 408, fig. 556. Reilly suggests that the designs were copied or cast from models by Clodion (1738-1814) although the form itself is also suggestive of Renaissance bronzes. Made using the local black-firing clay known as ‘Carr’, Wedgwood named this ‘refined’ clay body as ‘black basalt’ in reference to the hard stone it imitated. See the pair of ewers in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Wedgwood Collection, illustrated by David Bindman (Ed.), John Flaxman, R.A., Royal Academy of Arts Exhibition, 26 October - 9 December 1979, p. 50, nos. 19a & 19b.