Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
18th century
Medium
Black basalt ware
Dimensions
2 7/8 × 2 1/4 in. (7.3 × 5.7 cm)
Classification
Ceramics-Pottery
Culture
British, Etruria, Staffordshire
Department
European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Glenn Tilley Morse Collection, Bequest of Glenn Tilley Morse, 1950
Accession Number
50.187.14
Tags
Art Historical Context
This exquisite profile portrait medallion of Bernard le Bov de Fontenelle, by Josiah Wedgwood the 18th century captures the Enlightenment thinker's dignified likeness in black basalt ware. Fontenelle (1657–1757), a French philosopher and author celebrated for his witty writings on science and history, became a popular subject in neoclassical portraiture, reflecting the era's admiration for intellectual luminaries. Wedgwood mastery of black basalt—an unglazed, matte stoneware he perfected in the 1760s at his Etruria in Staffordshire—mimics the somber elegance of ancient Greek and Etruscan pott...
About the Artist
Josiah Wedgwood · 1730–1795
Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795) was born in Burslem, Staffordshire, the thirteenth child of a potter whose family had worked in the craft since the seventeenth century. Apprenticed to his elder brother Thomas following their father's death, he went on to a partnership with Thomas Whieldon of Fenton — the most respected potter in England at the time — which gave him command of all the principal techniq...