Vintage Wedgwood Pale Blue Jasperware Etruscan Jug – Export Reject Factory Second, Neoclassical Sprigged Figures, Stoneware, England 1970s

A small Wedgwood jasperware jug in the firm's classical Etruscan shape — rounded body, narrow neck, scrolled handle, and curved pouring spout, set in pale blue jasper stoneware with white sprigged-on neoclassical figures wrapping the body. The decoration runs the eighteenth-century repertoire Wedgwood built its name on: a classical female figure at a column-altar, an attendant figure with a flame offering, framed by sprigged fern fronds at the spout and a vine-leaf wreath at the handle base. The matte stoneware exterior catches light softly; the interior is glazed to keep liquid from soaking the porous body.

Important — Factory Second / Export Reject: This piece carries Wedgwood's official EXPORT REJECT impressed mark (with strike-through) on the underside, alongside the standard WEDGWOOD MADE IN ENGLAND impressed stamp. This is the mark Wedgwood used on jasperware pieces that did not pass first-quality retail inspection at the Stoke-on-Trent factory — typically because of a subtle surface flaw (a tiny pinhole, a minor colour variation, a slight sprig misalignment) that the firm's QC found unacceptable for first-quality retail but that often reads as imperceptible at display distance. The piece was sold through Wedgwood's export-second / factory-discount channels rather than the main retail line. It is still 100% genuine Wedgwood, made at the same factory with the same solid-jasper clay and the same sprig dies as first-quality — just QC-graded as second. Priced accordingly (~25% below first-quality equivalent).

Wedgwood invented jasperware in 1774 after years of clay experiments at the Etruria works. Solid jasper — where the colour runs all the way through the clay rather than being dipped over a base — has been the firm's signature ever since. The classical Sacrifice / Apotheosis sprigs on this jug are the visual language Josiah Wedgwood originally licensed from designers like John Flaxman in the 1780s–90s.

A piece for the Wedgwood Jasperware collector who likes to chase factory-second / Export Reject pieces (a small niche that hunts them down for the marking itself), for the neoclassical or Georgian-revival interior on a budget, for a small mantel or desk vignette, or as an introductory gift to the Wedgwood line.