Wedgwood’s great technical innovation, the coloured unglazed body known as ‘jasper’, enabled him to produce ornamental wares to harmonise with the colour schemes of neo-classical interiors. These rare miniature busts represent an unlikely quartet in which the French philosopher Denis Diderot is joined by Athena, Dionysus (previously thought to be Endymion) and Ariadne. They are probably what were described in Wedgwood’s 1787 catalogue as ‘small busts with emblematic terms’, and may have been the ‘female bust of biscuit, on china pedestal, and three smaller ones’ in Queen Charlotte’s posthumous sale (in 1819).

Catalogue entry adapted from George III & Queen Charlotte: Patronage, Collecting and Court Taste, London, 2004