Frog Service

[4] Most unusually for a formal royal service, it was made from Wedgwood's "Queen's ware", the firm's type of creamware or fine earthenware.

[6] In 1770 the Russian navy had a decisive victory over the Turks in the Battle of Chesma, part of the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) and the Orlov Revolt, a plan by Catherine to stir up Greece against its Ottoman rulers.

This was supposedly designed as a stopover to break the journey between St Petersburg and her summer palace at Tsarskoe Selo.

[8] The sale of the service was made at the recommendation of Jean Cathcart who was the wife of the British ambassador, a friend to Catherine the Great and a patron to Josiah Wedgwood.

Catherine was interested in Britain,[10] and the role played in the battle by British naval officers such as John Elphinstone and Samuel Greig (made an admiral by Orlov during the action) may have added to the appropriateness of the chosen decoration.

The painted decoration was also much simpler, with monochrome magenta-pink sprays of flowers in central zones, and borders of "pendant swags" of wheat husks, hence the name.

This mostly remains in the Peterhof Palace; similar husk decoration was used on other pieces, including a service ordered by George Washington.

According to Llewellynn Jewitt, 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".

[16] It appears that the selection of views leaned towards properties owned by good customers of Wedgwood, who no doubt enjoyed the thought of the Russian court seeing their houses and gardens.

[21] Before shipping to Russia it was placed on display, with great publicity, in Wedgwood's showrooms in Portland House, 12 Greek Street, Soho, London, in June 1774.

[29] The service, though a marketing triumph, represented something of a dead end in terms of the development of English pottery, and the high-water mark of fine hand-painted earthenware.

[31] For normal commercial wares, the transfer printing method had already become the norm in English pottery for detailed monochrome decoration.

This painting was mostly in broad washes, only requiring a relatively low level of skill, and the painters, mostly women, could be trained-up in the Staffordshire factories.