A Wedgwood England powder blue Jasperware trinket box featuring a depiction of the myth of Icarus and Daedalus in white relief surrounded by neoclassical figures and laurel wreath border. The box measures 3 3/8" long, 1 3/4" wide and 1 1/4" high. The bottom is impressed with "Wedgwood" "Made in England" "AE" for the finisher and the year "74." The condition is very good.
Jasper, which name means "spotted or speckled stone," is an opaque variety of chalcedony--a microcrystalline variety of the mineral quartz, and is created from various sedimentation and volcanic ash. In the 1770s, inspired by this opaque quartz, Josiah Wedgwood created Jasperware as a type of nonporous matte and unglazed stoneware in which white pottery is stained with metallic oxide colors, notably blue, dark blue, sage green, lilac, and even black and yellow. Sprigged decorations of applied white relief in neoclassical designs and classic Greek figures and mythology, commemorative cameos, and borders of oak leaf and acorn, leaf and berry, grapes and grapevines, and Acanthus are associated with Jasperware.
