Plate, 9 inches diameter. Black transfer with polychrome clobbering. Impressed maker’s mark for Josiah Wedgwood. The impressed three-letter code indicates a production date of 1882. The painted pattern number reads “A4305/5.” The pattern name “Euphrates” is a reference to one of the most important rivers in the Middle East and one that contributed to the origins and success of the Mesopotamian civilization. This floral pattern features highly-stylized, fluid, and organic shapes evoking flowers and foliage in the well and around the rim. There is also a slender band composed of the wave pattern broken by small cartouches at equal intervals.

Josiah Wedgwood was born in Burslem, Staffordshire, on July 12, 1730, into a family with a long tradition as potters. At the age of nine, after the death of his father, he worked in his family's pottery. In 1759 he set up his own pottery works in Burslem. There he produced a highly durable cream-colored earthenware that so pleased Queen Charlotte that in 1762 she appointed him royal supplier of dinnerware. From the public sale of Queen's Ware, as it came to be known, Wedgwood was able, in 1768, to build near Stoke-on-Trent a village, which he named Etruria, and a second factory equipped with tools and ovens of his own design. At first only ornamental pottery was made in Etruria, but by 1773 Wedgwood had concentrated all his production facilities there. During his long career Wedgwood developed revolutionary ceramic materials, notably basalt and jasperware. After Wedgwood's death in Etruria on January 3, 1795, his descendants carried on the business, which still produces many of his designs.