What was the Wedgwood and Bentley period?

The Wedgwood and Bentley period refers to the partnership between Josiah Wedgwood and Thomas Bentley, which ran from 1769 until Bentley's death in 1780. This short eleven-year period produced many ambitious ornamental ceramics and is highly relevant to collectors of early Black Basalt. Bentley worked closely with Wedgwood on the firm's ornamental side. Their partnership coincided with the opening of the Etruria works in Staffordshire in 1769 and with growing demand for neoclassical objects inspired by Greece and Rome.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for example, records a covered Black Basalt vase dated 1769–1780 and a Black Basalt portrait of architect Inigo Jones from the same period. For collectors, a genuine object tied to this partnership belongs to Josiah Wedgwood's lifetime and to an early phase of Black Basalt production. Attribution still requires care. A form first produced during the partnership could be reproduced later. Marks, shape, modelling, provenance and factory records can help separate period production from later versions. The dates 1769–1780 provide a useful historical frame, but a seller's description of an object as “Wedgwood and Bentley style” is not proof that it was made during those eleven years.