A jasperware bust on a contiguous socle and pedestal, the whole in blue dip with white bust, outlines and trophy on the pedestal. The bust of Athena with her face turned downwards, her helmet pushed back on her head, the pedestal with white low relief palm on each side and trophy including a tied ribbon to the front.

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