Three stylized botanical motifs provide the ornamentation of this handsomely proportioned basalt bowl. Alternating vertical acanthus leaves and bellflower sprigs encircle the bowl. Above them is a horizontal oak leaf and acorn border.

What is there to say about a design so aesthetically successful that it has remained among Wedgwood's offerings for most of the pottery's history? That although thoroughly ornamented the design shows such clarity of concept that the effect is clean and classical? That is so finely potted that a slight tap reveals a bell-like resonance? That it offers the same potential enhancement of a modern interior that it provided for nineteenth-century rooms?

All true, yet not quite adequate to capture the total experience of the piece.