The Green Frog Service

📖 The Scoop

The crowning achievement of the great English potter Josiah Wedgwood was a dinner and dessert service decorated with handpainted views of England, Scotland and Wales. Commissioned by Catherine the Great, and known as the Green Frog Service, it provides one of the finest surviving pictorial records of eighteenth century Britain.

Commissioned and produced in 1773-1774, the Service was destined for a 'palace' Catherine was building in the English Gothic style. Known as La Grenouillere, the palace served as the inspiration for the bright green frog that appears on every piece of the Service. The Empress asked for views of landscape gardens, and many of the finest gardens in Britain are depicted, together with a great array of 'Antiquities' - ruined castles and abbeys, old manor houses, Cornish dolmens - as well as romantic landscapes, views on the Thames at London and early industrial sites.

This commemorative book presents the Service for the first time in color and monochrome plates. It also includes essays on the making and decorating of the Service, the remarkable history of its survival in Russia and on Catherine the Great's passion for things English.

Genre: Antiques & Collectibles / Pottery & Ceramics (fancy, right?)