Wedgwood

The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent had a double celebration today when it welcomed home a vase by master potter Josiah Wedgwood and launched a fundraising campaign to buy the Leekfrith Iron Age Torcs.

A long-running appeal to raise nearly half a million pounds to return a Wedgwood’s First Day’s vase to Staffordshire has triumphed.

More than 140 pieces of Wedgwood go on display today in a Surrey Hills stately home.

Stoke-on-Trent’s Potteries Museum & Art Gallery is hopeful of raising nearly half a million pounds to buy a Wedgwood First Day’s vase after it was awarded a £90,000 grant from the Art Fund.

A temporary export bar has been placed on a rare Wedgwood vase in the hope £482,500 can be raised to keep it in the UK.

At just over 17in (42cm) high, the 1920s Wedgwood vase (shape 2465) is among the largest produced in the Fairyland Lustre range.

Paperweights from makers such as Caithness, Mdina, Selkirk, Wedgwood and Whitefriars go under the hammer at auctioneers Moore Allen & Innocent in Cirencester on August 7.

A series of deals to safeguard the future of the Wedgwood Collection and ensure it will continue to be displayed in the Potteries have now been completed.

It has taken just over a month for the Art Fund’s £2.74m appeal to save the Wedgwood Collection to reach its target. It will now be gifted to the V&A but will stay in situ at the Wedgwood Museum in Barlaston, near Stoke.

Soon after ATG reported that the public had contributed £700,000 in a matter of days to help the final push to save the Wedgwood archive, the news came through that close to £2m had been raised. Some £1.3m was donated in just four days.

There are promising signs for the future of the Wedgwood Museum thanks to planning approval given to redevelop the site where it is based near Stoke-on-Trent.

This 12in (30cm) diameter Wedgwood Queen’s Ware ‘Boat Race’ bowl, designed by Eric Ravilious, appeared at a recent sale held by Robertson’s of Kinbuck, near Dunblane.

The highlight of the recent Decorative Art and Design sale conducted by Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet was this Wedgwood Fairyland lustre malfrey pot and cover designed by Daisy Makeig-Jones (1881-1945).

Negotiations on a new rescue package have raised hopes of saving the Wedgwood Museum collection. Those involved expect to be able to unveil an agreement within the next few months.

SPEEDY government intervention is essential to save the Wedgwood Museum’s collection, descendants of Josiah Wedgwood say.

A WHITE knight has stepped forward with an offer to rescue the Wedgwood Museum collection after a High Court judgment ruled it should be sold off to pay pension scheme creditors.