Is it real Wedgwood?
The Wedgwood Collector is faced with many imitators and unscrupulous rival manufacturers who either traded on a relationship to the Wedgwood family by marking their wares so that the uninformed might buy them thinking that they were getting Wedgwood quality or left their products unmarked so that the buyer might attribute their work to the Wedgwood potteries.
Some of the imitators’ work is quite good and would grace a collection of 18th and 19th century English potters work. Fortunately Josiah was the first potter of note to mark his production with his own name, rather than easily copied potters marks like the crossed sword mark used at Sevres or the Chelsea potteries’ anchor mark.
Josiah was not reticent to defend his marks and reputation in court during his lifetime and his successors have followed that pattern to the present day. While early Wedgwood works may be unmarked, the presence of the correct mark is both an indication that the piece is genuine and an index of its age. After 1781 few unmarked pieces can be correctly attributed to Wedgwood
Beware of ware marked ‘Wedgwood & Co’ by Enoch Wedgwood and also ware of the 1790-1801 period by the Knottingley Pottery which was also marked ‘Wedgwood & Co’
Josiah Wedgwood (& Sons Ltd)
Famous manufacturer of earthenware and porcelain at Burslem then Etruria and lastly Barlaston (where the factory is currently situated) c.1759+
