Sprigging (pottery) the Fulham Pottery or the German-born Elers brothers were first is uncertain. They used metal moulds, which tend to leave a thin line impressed into the body around the outline of the sprig. White Chinese Dehua porcelain cups and pots with sprigged prunus (plum/cherry) blossom decoration were copied by several European porcelain factories in the mid-18th century, from Meissen and Sèvres to Bow. Sprigging was used extensively in the Staffordshire potteries on a variety of wares and reached a height with Josiah Wedgwood's Jasperware, and his replica of the Portland Vase in 1790, which fully exploited the possibilities of contrasting
Jasperware "dipped" (or "Jasper dip") respectively. The undyed body was white when fired, sometimes with a yellowish tinge; cobalt was added to elements that were to stay white. Named after the mineral jasper for marketing reasons, the exact Wedgwood formula remains confidential, but analyses indicate that barium sulphate is a key ingredient. Wedgwood had introduced a different type of stoneware called black basalt a decade earlier. He had been researching a white stoneware for some time, creating a body called "waxen white jasper" by 1773-74. This tended to fail in firing, and was not as attractive as the final jasperware, and