TWO WEDGWOOD & BENTLEY BLUE SOLID JASPERWARE OVAL MEDALLIONS

TWO WEDGWOOD & BENTLEY BLUE SOLID JASPERWARE OVAL MEDALLIONS circa 1775-1780, impressed Wedgwood & Bentley marks, the first with deep-blue dip, depicting 'Jupiter's Quest of Io', after the painting by Antonio Correggio inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses, applied in white relief with the nude Naiad princess Io being seduced by Jupiter who is enveloped in a dense cloud, h: 3 3/8 in.; the second depicts 'Isis with the Cistrum', after an Antique gem, applied in white relief with a waist-length profile of Isis holding a sistrum, h: 3 3/8 in. (2)

Provenance: Jeffrey Milkins Collection, no. 766 and 910.

Catalogue Note:
For similar Jupiter and Io medallions see, The Emily Winthrop Miles Collection (cover illustration) and Skinner, Boston, 1 October 2010, sale 2519B, lot 93.

Two versions of Isis are known, one titled 'Isis, wife of Osiris' and another specifying 'Isis, with the flower lotus'. By the 1779 catalogue, Wedgwood had qualified the entry as 'Isis, with a Cistrum'. The Antique gem prototype is illustrated in both Leonardo Agostini's 'Gemmae et Sculpturae Antiquae', pl. 68 and in Bernard Montfaucon's 'L'Antiquite Expliquee', vol. I, pl. 108. Wedgwood, produced both shoulder-length and half-length versions.