On the cover: Time to remember the 250th anniversary of Wedgwood: a clock face from a Carrara marble and jasperware mantelpiece, 1882. The mantelpiece, now in the Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, was designed by Halsey Ricardo for Buckminster Park, in Leicestershire, England. The decoration includes fifteen classical portraits at the top; large plaques showing Hercules, Endymion, Actaeon, and Diana; smaller plaques with playful putti on either side of a larger tablet depicting the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche; and the central clock face with the signs of the zodiac and two seated female figures. The figure on the right, with distaff and spinning wheel, might be Clotho, or Penelope, or Minerva. A similar figure appears on an 1880 green jasperware plaque of the Seven Ages of Man, illustrated in Michael Herman, Wedgwood Jasper (Atglen, 2007), p. 146. The lady on the left holds a laurel crown in her extended left hand, laurel leaves on her lap, and a ring-shaped object perforated with holes in her right hand. Any suggestions from society members as to the identity of these two figures would be very welcome.
The Wedgwood Society of New York
Ars Ceramica
2556 NW 64th Blvd
Boca Raton, Florida 33496-2011