Frog Service
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The Frog Service or Green Frog Service is a large dinner and dessert service made by the English pottery company Wedgwood for Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, and completed in 1774. The service had fifty settings, and 944 pieces were ordered, 680 for the dinner service and 264 for the dessert. At Catherine's request the hand-painted decoration showed British scenes, copied from prints, with a total of 1,222 views. In addition each piece had a green frog within a shield, a reference to the name of the palace it was intended for.
The green frog carried on every piece. According to Josiah Wedgwood's Victorian biographer "he was very unwilling to disfigure the service with this reptile [sic], but was told it was not to be dispensed with".
Serving-plate with Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire, Birmingham Museum of Art
Detail of tureen with view of Longford Castle, Hermitage Museum
Dish, ladle and saucer with "husk" border, Wedgwood, c. 1780
Josiah Wedgwood
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Josiah Wedgwood was an English potter, entrepreneur and abolitionist. Founding the Wedgwood company in 1759, he developed improved pottery bodies by systematic experimentation, and was the leader in the industrialisation of the manufacture of European pottery.
Etruria Hall, the family home, built 1768–1771 by Joseph Pickford. It was restored as part of the 1986 Stoke-on-Trent Garden Festival and is now part of a four-star hotel.
A group of disused bottle kilns near St John's parish church, Burslem.
Vase on stand with inverted Neck, Josiah Wedgwood and Sons and Thomas Bentley, before 1780, black basalt. Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin.