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 exhibited in London in that year, with the initial showing restricted to 1,900 tickets, which soon sold out. Wedgwood's careful copies proved extremely useful when the vase was smashed in the British Museum in 1845, and then reconstructed by the restorer John Doubleday. The original edition was of 50 copies; in 1838 a further edition was cast in one piece, with the background then painted. Wedgwood jasperware can often be dated by the style of potter's marks, although there are exceptions to the rules: Jasperware was widely copied in England and elsewhere from its introduction, especially by other makers of