PAIR OF WEDGWOOD BLACK BASALT RECTANGULAR PLAQUES, â BACCHANALIAN TRIUMPHâ AND â BACCHANALIAN SACRIFICEâ

PAIR OF WEDGWOOD BLACK BASALT RECTANGULAR PLAQUES, â BACCHANALIAN TRIUMPHâ AND â BACCHANALIAN SACRIFICEâ late 18th/early 19th Century, impressed uppercase marks, each molded in high-relief with Bacchanalian revelers, one depicting a procession of eight bacchantes and six putti making merry, the lead putto at the far right blowing a horn and riding a ram; the other with a Bacchanalian procession of fourteen satyrs and figures preparing a sacrificial ram before a central term of an ancient deity, a horn player and a lion at the far left, h: 9 1/4 x w: 21 1/8 in., within carved giltwood frames (2)

Provenance: With Harry and Roslyn Rose, 2008.
Jeffrey Milkins Collection, no. 520.

Catalogue Note:
See the Wedgwood & Bentley 1773 catalogue for first listing of these subjects, nos. 70 and 71. For a similar tablet of the â Bacchanalian Sacrificeâ , attributed to Claude Michel Clodion (1738-1814), see the Birmingham Museum of Art, accession no. 1980.104. For another example, see The British Museum, accession no. 1911,1017.1. For both subjects in various materials reference, Robin Reilly, â Wedgwoodâ , Vol. I, p. 486, no. 696 and p. 372, no. 493.

Exhibitions: Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina, â Classic Black: The Basalt Sculpture of Wedgwood and His Contemporariesâ , 9 February 2020 â 3 January 2021, nos. 48.1 and 48.2.

Literature: Brian Gallagher, â Classic Blackâ , op. cit., exhibition catalogue, pp. 160-161, nos. 48.1 and 48.2.