Archaeology in the home: neoclassical ceramics for new audiences in mid-nineteenth-century Britain

For audiences not familiar with antiquity, the shattering of the Portland Vase at the British Museum in 1845 raised awareness of a classical past which was claimed by many European nations as their cultural heritage. This article explores how the British ceramics industry quickly exploited a ready market, prompted by such interest. A new genre of wares was produced industrially, mainly in Stoke-on-Trent until the 1870s, although manufacture continued sporadically until 1900. Modern techniques, including moulding and transfer-printing, allowed the creation of versions of black- and red-figure ancient Greek ceramics, sometimes in vivid polychrome. Hitherto largely overlooked by museums and standard histories of ceramics, the material evidence of this fashion endures. Although the resulting artefacts were often marketed without reference to their origins in antiquity, an argument is presented here for their having more than merely decorative significance.