TWO WEDGWOOD BLACK BASALT PORTRAIT MEDALLIONS, DR. JOHN WOODWARD (1665-1728) AND DR. RICHARD MEAD (1673-1754)

TWO WEDGWOOD BLACK BASALT PORTRAIT MEDALLIONS, DR. JOHN WOODWARD (1665-1728) AND DR. RICHARD MEAD (1673-1754) late 18th Century, impressed Wedgwood & Bentley or Wedgwood marks, identified below, each based on an ivory carving by Silvanus Bevan (1691-1765), modeled by William Hackwood or by John Flaxman, respectively, both in full wig, cravat and waistcoat and jacket, Woodward in profile, to sinister, Mead, a quarter to dexter, h: 3 1/2 in., both (2)

Provenance: Fairfield Auction, Monroe, CT, 10 November 2017, both.
Jeffrey Milkins Collection, nos. 907 and 908.

Catalogue Note:
For jasperware examples and concise biographies see, Robin Reilly and George Savage, 'Wedgwood: The Portrait Medallions' pp. 345 and 237. For a Mead jasperware example, the corresponding ivory and wax mold, see The British Museum, accession no. 1887,0307,I.100. For a detailed discussion see, Hugh Tait, Proceedings of the Wedgwood Society (III), 1959, 'Wedgwood, Flaxman and an English eighteenth-century portrait carver', pp.126-132. Woodward was a fossil collector, natural philosopher and physician to Charles II, interred in Westminster Abbey. Mead was a leading British physician promoting preventative medicine and a greater understanding of contagions.