WedgWood's 'Landscapes With Frogs'

In 1774 Josiah Wedgwood manufactured a dinner and dessert service decorated with views of British houses and gardens which is a unique time capsule showing the landscapes of that date and recording many views now significantly changed or lost.

One of the most important eighteenth-century services ever created was commissioned by Empress Catherine II of Russia (1729-1796). Catherine II ordered two sets of Wedgwood, one in 1770, and the second three years later. In March 1773 Wedgwood and his partner, Thomas Bentley, were approached by Alexander Baxter, a member of the Russia Company and Catherine’s agent in Britain, to create a dinner and dessert service for fifty people, comprising 952 pieces: each to be hand-painted with 1244 landscape views of Britain.

KEYWORDS: Gardens, Green Spaces, Josiah Wedgwood, Potteries, Stoke, Etruria

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