What is Wedgwood Black Basalt?

Wedgwood Black Basalt is a fine-grained black stoneware closely associated with Josiah Wedgwood and the Staffordshire pottery he founded in 1759. It has a dense body, deep black colour and matt or burnished surface that can resemble carved stone or ancient bronze. Josiah Wedgwood developed the material during the eighteenth century, drawing on earlier Staffordshire traditions of black pottery. Black Basalt proved particularly suited to crisp modelling, turning and relief work. Wedgwood used it for teapots, coffee pots, vases, busts, plaques, medallions, candlesticks and ornamental objects. Surviving examples from the 1770s and 1780s show how quickly it became part of the factory's output.

The dark ceramic body is not created by painting ordinary pottery black. Colour runs through the body, which is one reason an old chip can look dark inside rather than exposing a white ceramic centre. Collectors often compare Black Basalt with Wedgwood Jasperware, yet they are separate ceramic bodies. Black Basalt usually relies on its dark surface, modelling, polished areas and shape for decoration and some eighteenth-century pieces received coloured encaustic-style decoration inspired by ancient Greek pottery.