A Companion to Mediterranean History

292 tehmina goskar

We have already seen how the tourist souvenirs of the late eighteenth and

nineteenth century comprised real Mediterranean spolia and that these artifacts

laid the foundations of several major international museums. Museum galleries

bedecked with row upon row of Greek vases have indelibly stereotyped visualiza-

tions of Mediterranean heritage and material culture. The Classical stereotype is

so visceral in the modern world of museums that its own internationally- recognized

symbol is a stylized classical temple with a triangular pediment. The classical idiom

gained currency through the publication of collections. Publication enhanced the

reputation of the collector and bestowed on the collection the authenticity of

scholarship. A catalogue could also substantially broaden the impact and appeal of

a collection. Baron Pierre D’Hancarville’s publication of Sir William Hamilton’s

first collection of ancient southern Italian ceramics—one of the bedrocks of the

British Museum—not only provided proof of the collection’s Greek not Etruscan

provenance but was also used as a major source of inspiration for contemporary

designers and manufacturers such as Josiah Wedgwood. The self-styled French

connoisseur painstakingly created a fully-illustrated catalogue of Hamilton’s

Greco–Italian antiquities in four volumes (1766–67).

Josiah Wedgwood pored over these to generate pottery designs that were distinc-

tive and globally recognizable: “I am picking up every design and improvement for a

Vase work,” he wrote to his business partner Thomas Bentley in June 1767 (Finer and

Savage, 1965: 66). Wedgwood not only chose to emulate the classical motifs of the

collection but also wanted to reproduce its materials. An example of this was in his

development of black basalt ware with red enameling to reproduce the Greek

red-figure vases of Hamilton’s collection. Originally known as “Egyptian black,”

Wedgwood refined its composition to resemble real basalt. The main factory was

named Etruria, surrounding his manufacturing in Mediterranean nostalgia. He fed,

and to an extent, generated the demand for plausible copies of antique pieces,

particularly by those who desired, but could not afford, something approaching the

real thing. These original Wedgwood pieces have now become more widely sought

after than the pieces that inspired them, illustrating how these modern objects have

spread neo-classical Mediterraneanism across a large part of the world. Perhaps this is

what Wedgwood himself could foresee:

I am rejoiced to know you have shipped off the Green and Gold—may the winds and seas

be propitious and the invaluable Cargo be wafted in safety to their destined Market, for

the emolument of our American Brethren and friends ... It is really amazing how rapidly

the use of it has spread almost over the whole Globe, and how universally it is liked. (to

Bentley, Sept. 1767, Finer and Savage, 1965: 58)

The name Wedgwood is synonymous with ideals of good taste and quality, and

steeped in tradition. Its classically-inspired products remain as widely accessible

now as they were in 1767. This heritage is enshrined in the Wedgwood Museum,

one of the first permanent museums founded by a manufacturer. Today the

museum offers visitors the opportunity to create personalized virtual jasper cam-

eos of themselves, continuing a tradition of three-dimensional portraiture that

began in Hellenistic Greece. The biographical possibilities of the classical cameo

are endless.

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