Wedgwood's Catalogue of Cameos Intaglios Medals Bas-Reliefs Busts and Small Statues

This fascinating 1873 publication is a version of the catalogue produced by the Wedgwood company almost one hundred years earlier in 1787. Its editor the feminist writer Eliza Meteyard (1816–79) was a friend of the Wedgwood/Darwin families and had published a two-volume biography of Josiah Wedgwood in 1865. She explains in her preface that the sixth (and last) such catalogue of Wedgwood''s lifetime ''having been long out of print … is thus verbally reprinted without other alteration than a few press corrections and the insertion of various illustrations from the Life of Wedgwood''. A brief history of the catalogues is provided followed by a long list of the cameos intaglios figurines vases and dinner tea and coffee services which the firm offered. Wedgwood also advised on how to form a collection of cameos which are listed by subject: sets containing Greek gods or kings of France or popes were available.