Wedgwood’s Catalogue of Cameos, Intaglios, Medals, Bas-Reliefs, Busts, and Small Statues: Reprinted from the Edition of 1787 (Cambridge Library Collection - Art and Architecture)

This fascinating 1873 publication is a version of the catalogue produced by the Wedgwood company almost one hundred years earlier, in 1787. Its editor, the feminist writer Eliza Meteyard (1816–79), was a friend of the Wedgwood/Darwin families, and had published a two-volume biography of Josiah Wedgwood in 1865. She explains in her preface that the sixth (and last) such catalogue of Wedgwood's lifetime, 'having been long out of print … is thus verbally reprinted, without other alteration than a few press corrections and the insertion of various illustrations from the Life of Wedgwood'. A brief history of the catalogues is provided, followed by a long list of the cameos, intaglios, figurines, vases and dinner, tea and coffee services which the firm offered. Wedgwood also advised on how to form a collection of cameos, which are listed by subject: sets containing Greek gods, or kings of France, or popes were available.