(1730–1795)
The innovative eighteenthcentury English pottery manufacturer and social reformer who named his pottery works and house after Etruria. The works formed an estate of some 350 acres, situated between Burslem, Hanley, and Newcastle under Lyme strategically placed next to the projected Trent and Mersey canal. This advantage, coupled with effective marketing under the Etruscan brand, led to the widespread distribution of his Etruscan-style or more properly his neoclassical-style pottery to the rest of England and beyond. He claimed his Etruscan art style to be a rebirth of the art of Etruria, but for the most part his work had other Greek vases as their source, especially from Pierre-Francois d’Hancarville’s publication of Sir William Hamilton’s vases. By accident, he did manufacture one copy of an Etruscan bronze of a youth.
Historical Dictionary of the Etruscans. Simon K. F. Stoddart.