‘Jasper Fireplaces’, by Josiah Wedgwood
‘Between 1781 and 1786 Wedgwood made his most ambitious fireplace products, a series of tablets designed to go all the way around a mantelpiece. Only four complete 18th century jasper mantelpieces like this are known to survive, and three of the four are in this room.
The fourth one is in the USA, at Biltmore House in North Carolina, a mansion of the Vanderbilts, and it was put in when the house was built in the 1870s. Of the three in this room, the green one came from the house of the Master of the Mint in Dublin, and the other two came from Longton Hall in Staffordshire.’
Free gallery talks Tuesday 10 and Thursday 26 May, 1pm, Room 3