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 ancient Greek vases was an important influence on Flaxman's work. These vases were first known in England from D'Hancarville's engravings, published from 1766. Inspiration for Flaxman and Wedgwood came not only from ancient ceramics, but also from cameo glass, particularly the Portland Vase which was brought to England by Sir William Hamilton by 1784. The vase was lent to Wedgwood by the third Duke of Portland from 1786. Wedgwood devoted four years of painstaking trials at duplicating the vase in black and white jasperware, which was finally completely in 1790, the figures perhaps modelled by William Hackwood. The replica was