“Please help us to keep Josiah Wedgwood’s Vase in Stoke-on-Trent where it can be freely seen and enjoyed by all visitors to the Potteries Museums & Art Gallery forever.”

Seen above is a section of the First Days Vase (1769), photographed on display in the Potteries Museum. It shows the ancient heroes Oineus and Demophon. Oineus was said to have been taught the arts of the vine by Dionysos, and thus he later invented wine-making. Demophon was a hero of the Trojan War, being one of the soldiers inside the famous Trojan Horse – by which method he rescued his grandmother Aithra from torment in the city of Troy. Demophon was also the son of the Theseus, he who had famously braved the Minotaur in the Cretan maze.