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Plaster Shops were exclusive to Great Britain in the 18th century and supplied figures and plaster works for ornamentation to the public and sold models to manufacturers like Wedgwood. Wedgwood's colleagues at plaster shops provided him designs and plaster casts enabling him to mass produce his wares and he could economize by employing workers with fewer skills.  No designs were protected by copyright laws (until 1798), so Wedgwood and his modelers were free to expand his product line as they wished. Producing plaster figures became associated with Italian immigrants who went to London. Wedgwood had competitors like Anthony Sartini from Italy in addition to his other English competitors. 

For more information on 18th century plaster business see Developments in the Plaster Figures Trade.

Plaster Shops & Modelers

• James Hoskins (d. 1791) and Benjamin Grant (fl. 1775-1809) both apprenticed with sculptor John Cheere (fl. 1709-1787). Their shop, Hoskins and Grant (and its predecessor, Hoskins and Oliver) supplied Wedgwood with a number of plaster molds for figures and busts, including Zingara and Ben Jonson.
• More about library busts from The Wedgwood Museum
• John Flaxman Sr (1726-1803) was a molder and had a plaster shop which supplied Wedgwood with the designs for "Sacred to Neptune” and “Sacred to Bacchus” derived from the designs of Sigisbert Michel (1728-1811), a member of a celebrated French family of sculptors to whom no credit for design work was given.
• The plaster shop of David Crashley (or Chrashley) (fl. 1775-1777) was in London’s Long Acre.
• William Hackwood (1757-1839) worked at Etruria from 1769 to 1832.
• More about Hackwood's legacy from The Wedgwood Museum.    
• Hackwood used the seal of the Abolition of Slavery Society to mold this medallion in The Mint Museum's collection seen here.
• Richard Parker (fl. 1768-1774) was a London modeler specializing in plaster casts.
• Wedgwood's Black Basalt bust of Zingara is attributed to a cast from Parker's shop.
• He supplied Wedgwood with the cast for William Pitt, Lord Chatham.

Wedgwood. William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, 1770–80, stoneware (black basalt). Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; The Buten Wedgwood Collection, gift through the Wedgwood Society of New York, AFI.3258.2008	Norman Bates (after George Stubbs original mold), Wedgwood. The Frightened Horse, 1963, stoneware (black basalt). Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; The Buten Wedgwood Collection, gift through the Wedgwood Society of New York, AFI. 1755.2008

• George Stubbs (1724-1806), an English painter of horses, modeled two bas-reliefs for Wedgwood, The Fall of Phaeton and The Frightened Horse.
• More on Stubbs 
• James Tassie (1735-1799) was a Scottish modeler Wedgwood employed but ultimately was a business competitor.
• More about James Tassie from Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts

• Read about Tassie in Old Wedgwood by Frederick Rathbone 

•  Joachim Smith (1737-1814),  a modeler employed by Wedgwood.

• See a portrait medallion modeled by Smith at the Victoria & Albert Museum 
• Old Wedgwood by Frederick Rathbone (1898), includes a list of the army of artists employed by or associated with Wedgwood 

18th Century Sculptors

• Perhaps the most significant sculptor to work for Wedgwood, John Flaxman Jr (1755-1826) began to work for Wedgwood at the age of 19 and was known for his sculptures, drawings, engravings and designs for Wedgwood pottery. 

• Learn about John Flaxman Jr and his Circle from University College London.
• Find out about what influenced John Flaxman Jr from Artble.
• More about John Flaxman Jr from visual-arts-cork.com.
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• John Bacon (1740-1799), a London-based sculptor of the new Royal Academy Schools, the first publicly funded body in Britain teaching sculpture in the classical tradition. Bacon was a partner at Eleanor Coade’s Artificial Stone Manufactory in Lambeth from which he sold relief designs to Wedgwood & Bentley. 

• Edmé Bouchardon (1698-1762) a French sculptor whose vases designs in Premier Livre de Vases were used by Wedgwood.
• John Cheere (1709-1787) was known to copy sculptors such as Scheemakers and Rysback. He ran a plaster shop in London as well and apprenticed both James Hoskins and Benjamin Grant among others.
• Louis-François Roubiliac (1702-1762), French sculptor
•  More about Roubiliac in Nollekens and His Times by John Thomas Smith (1920).

• John Michael Rysback (1694-1770), a Flemish sculptor who spent most of his career in England.

• Peter Scheemakers (1691-1781) arrived in England sometime before 1721.

• Elizabeth Upton, Lady Templetown (1747-1823) a British artist whose designs of women and their domestic life were used by Wedgwood.

Competitors

Other Staffordshire potteries competed with Wedgwood such as:

• Humphrey Palmer's Church Works factory
• More about the factory's history.

• A vase from the Victoria & Albert Museum from the Staffordshire factory founded by Humphrey Palmer (active 1760-1778) and continued by his London agent and brother-in-law James Neale after Palmer's financial difficulties in 1778.

• Neale & Company (active 1778-1816)

Humphrey Palmer's Church Works factory. Vase, 1769, stoneware (black basalt). Museum Purchase: Delhom collection. 1965.48.921. collection of The Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC	Neale & Company. Cleopatra, circa 1780-90, stoneware (black basalt). Collection of Lucie and Bob Reichner

• Wedgwood’s Lunar Society friend and competitor, Matthew Boulton (1728-1809) made vases and candelabra in expensive materials. Wedgwood was able to make a more affordable alternative. Despite their competing businesses, they did collaborate.

• John Philip Elers (1664-1738), a Dutch silversmith, and his brother had a pottery business.

• John Turner (1738-1787) of Turner & Co., a Staffordshire potter, was a friend of Wedgwood and a rival. 
• Anthony Sartini (active 1785-1801) arrived in London by 1785 from Italy and was a plaster figure maker.

Contemporaries Abroad

• Bertrand Andrieu (1761-1822) a French medalist whom Wedgwood copied. 

• John (Jan or Jean) de Vaere (or Devaere) (1755-1830), another artist in Rome where he earned the Pope's Silver Medal for Sculpture and worked as an assistant for John Flaxman. He sent back a relief that depicted the gods and goddesses on the Borghese Vase. 

• Here de Vaere is given modelling credit for the Wedgwood version of the Borghese Vase.

• More about de Vaere from the Victoria & Albert Museum

• Camillo Pacetti (1758-1826) sent wax reliefs from Rome depicting episodes from the myth of Achilles; his source was the Barberini sarcophagus in the Capitoline Museums.
• In Amsterdam, Lambertus van Veldhuysen supplied numerous prints of individuals from which Wedgwood made Dutch portrait medallions.
• See an example of a black basalt portrait medallion of a Dutch Naval Commander here. 

Created by Christina Petty, LIS Graduate Student