The combination of the rosso antico body and black (actually a special brown-black) relief was frequently used by Wedgwood for pieces inspired by the ancient ceramics reaching Great Britain from Mediterranean excavations.

Here a shallow bowl--more suggestive of a ritual offering than a European tea table--receives a wide meander border, composed simply of short linear segments. A saw tooth pattern in blind relief rises from the footrim, completing the archaic geometric decoration. Together these elements, whether derived from archeological sources or merely romantic imagination, evoke a far distant past that would have been interpreted by consumers as Egyptian.

After Josiah II took over the reins of the Wedgwood works, he revived interest in the rosso antico body which had been developed, but  then neglected, by his father. This renewed production--lucky for us all--coincided with the taste for Egyptian antiquities stimulated by Napoleon's exploits and the documentary works of Baron Vivant-Denon and others.

As the name antique red suggests, the combination of the red body and the brownish-black clay of the relief was evocative of ancient artifacts from the  Mediterranean region. Add relief copies of  Egyptian objects and some non-sensical hieroglyphs or the mysterious meander decoration derived from ancient pottery and the result was one of the potteries most enchanting productions.

Other examples of Wedgwood's Egyptian revival tablewares are available elsewhere on this site. (See final photo.)