Thanks to the invention of photography, the film and now the perfection of television, the ordinary citizen, reading his illustrated newspaper, viewing a cinema film or television programme can see and recognize the features of many of the Fellows of the Royal Society. The television and radio programmes produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation, to celebrate the tercentenary of the Royal Society enabled us to see and hear them and to view the results of their scientific researches. Earlier generations were not so fortunate. Prior to the latter decades of the eighteenth century only a few of our ancestors could see the features of the Fellows in paintings or sculptured busts. Even these were few and far between, and could be seen only in private family collections, in art galleries, or in public museums. Josiah W edgwood’s Invention of Jasper—an Artistic Triumph In 1774 Wedgwood produced a ceramic material which he called jasper which enabled him to reproduce quite cheaply perfect portrait medallions. Wedgwood’s jasper, a close-grained stoneware body of exquisite beauty and delicacy, was the result of years of patient and prolonged experiments at his Etruria Works. It was capable of being stained throughout its substance with metallic oxides and the colour most in demand was soon known as ‘Wedgwood Blue’. Other colours used by Wedgwood in his manufacture of the medallions were green, lavender, sage, lilac and yellow. The actual portraits were usually of pure white jasper, which was almost translucent against a black or coloured background.
Josiah Wedgwood’s portrait medallions of Fellows of the Royal Society
