(Picture source: Wikipedia - Birmingham Science Museum)

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The Englishman Josiah Wedgwood - the inventor of jasperware porcelain - has had a lasting influence on the porcelain landscape to this day. The type of soft porcelain also known as "Jasperware" laid the foundation for the English porcelain or ceramic stronghold in Staffordshire. Wedgwood did not follow the teachings of German and Russian manufactresses in his further development of ceramics, but developed his shards after the derivation of the mineral jasper. 

Wedgwood's jasperware was one of the outstanding gifts of the British Crown. You can still find these noble pieces in the rooms and chambers of all the royal houses of Europe. Strictly speaking, however, jasperware belongs to the stoneware group. He used clay as a shaping mass, heavy feldspar as a flux and flint to make the body stable. In keeping with his time and the state of the art, the decorative colours of Jasper soft porcelain consisted of metal oxides, mainly cobalt for the colour blue.