Vase

A black basalt vase with painted designs. Wedgwood described this type of painted decoration as 'encaustic' decoration. He developed this technique to imitate recently excavated ancient pottery. At the time Wedgwood was imitating the ancient pottery, it was thought to have come from Etruria. In the ancient world Etruria was in Italy. He named his new factory Etruria for this reason. However, it soon became apparent that the decorated pottery, which was so admired, actually came from Greece.