This ewer, which depicts an image of the mythical Daedalus, at work building the wings that took him and his young son Icarus from their island prison, is part of the Birmingham Museum of Art's Dwight and Lucille Beeson Wedgwood Collection. It is made of black basalt, a durable stoneware body first produced by Wedgwood in 1768, and is decorated with encaustic colors in imitation of ancient Greek pottery. Josiah Wedgwood called this type of ware "Etruscan" after the ancient Italian land, which occupies modern-day Tuscany.

The ewer, which derives its shape from the Greek oinochoe, or wine jug, is one of the earliest pieces of Etruscan ware in the Beeson Collection. In contrast to most examples of this type of ware, the ewer is decorated with an unusual amount of white enamel. Wedgwood's Etruscan wares are typically painted in varying shades of orange-red, which more closely resemble the decoration on Greek red-figure vases.

A group of Wedgwood's Etruscan wares will be on display at the Museum from August 26, 2007 through January 13, 2008 as part of the exhibition Artes Etruriae Renascuntur: Sir William Hamilton, Josiah Wedgwood, and the Dream of Etruria. The exhibition will also feature examples of ancient Greek pottery borrowed from the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and two volumes of the catalogue of Sir William Hamilton's collection of ancient Greek and Roman vases. The exhibition will explore the reception of classical Greek and Roman culture in the eighteenth century, will compare actual Greek red-figure pottery with Wedgwood's Etruscan wares, and will highlight the Hamilton collection as both source and inspiration for Wedgwood.

The Dwight and Lucille Beeson Wedgwood Collection 1982.174