The Dwight and Lucille Beeson Wedgwood collection at the Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama

The Birmingham Museum of Art is proud to display permanently the Dwight and Lucille Beeson Wedgwood Collection, the largest and most comprehensive collection of eighteenth-century Wedgwood outside England. The most important part of the collection falls within the Wedgwood factory's Wedgwood and Bentley period (1769-80) and includes examples of most extant forms. Delicate teaware, which is translucent when held to the light, and elaborately detailed vases, medallions, and other objects are but a few of the fascinating basalt and jasper forms from the late eighteenth century. Also represented are pre-Wedgwood pottery from Staffordshire, both transfer- and enamel-decorated cream ware, caneware, antico rosso, and pearl ware and white ware from the late-nineteenth century. This collection of approximately fourteen hundred objects is a comprehensive compilation of most forms of Wedgwood's ware from the eighteenth century, and such rare pieces as the figure of Britannia, a medallion bearing the portrait of Sir William Hamilton and inscribed by Thomas Bentley, and a cream-ware cream cullier can be found in no other museum. Unlike the history of most ceramics, the history of Wedgwood is directly tied to the life of Josiah Wedgwood, a true Renaissance man, and the events of the eighteenth century. In this volume, the author traces Wedgwood's life and briefly discusses changes in the pottery industry which supported Wedgwood's sustained success. Sources of design and decoration are listed for many objects, and methods of production in relationship to distinctive characteristics of eighteenth-century ware are also delineated. Each entry in the catalog section gives complete information about the item: its date, dimensions, marks, provenance, and design source, if known. The black-and-white photographs of the items are supplemented by numerous color plates. Many design sources are illustrated.