Wedgwood and Beyond: English Ceramics from the Starr Collection
Wedgwood and Beyond: English Ceramics from the Starr Collection
A WEDGWOOD AND BENTLEY LARGE BLACK BASALT BUST OFTHE POET AND PLAYWRIGHT BEN JOHNSON LATE 18TH CENTURY
Auction Closed
October 23, 06:38 PM GMT
Estimate
4,000 - 6,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
A WEDGWOOD AND BENTLEY LARGE BLACK BASALT BUST OFTHE POET AND PLAYWRIGHT BEN JOHNSON LATE 18TH CENTURY
modeled wearing a doublet and shirt collar, raised on a separate socle base, the reverse of the shoulder with impressed uppercase WEDGWOOD, letters RK, the lower edge with uppercase JOHNSON, the underside of the socle with uppercase WEDGWOOD & BENTLEY mark.
Height 17⅝ in.
44.7 cm
The Milton Milestone Collection of early Wedgwood Pottery, Sotheby Parke Bernet, Inc. New York, April 6, 1976, lot 217
Sotheby Parke Bernet, Inc. New York, December 1, 1977, lot 64
Another example is in the Manchester Museum, illustrated in Robin Reilly, Wedgwood, London, 1989, Vol. I, p. 455, who notes that the plaster cast was supplied by Hoskins & Grant and that the bust is first listed in the Wedgwood and Bentley catalogue of 1774 (see Reilly, 1989, Vol. II, p. 750).