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
American art pottery Arthur Dovey, who worked at Niloak, is often credited with inventing this swirl, but it may have been invented earlier in a different pottery altogether. There is no question that Niloak popularized the style, however, and apart from a three-year hiatus in the late 1910s, Niloak was successful until the Great Depression put sales into a slump. It struggled on for some years and went out of business in 1947. The J. B. Owens Pottery Company was founded in Roseville, Ohio, in 1885 by J. B. Owens. After moving to Zanesville, it produced art pottery from 1896 to around 1910,