Chapter VI: English Porcelain 73 (2)

The baneful influence of contact with the West, already noticed in dealing with Chinese porcelain, did not fail to make itself felt in the work of the Arita potters. From the last quarter of the seventeenth century may be dated the appearance of the ware generally considered in Europe as peculiarly characteristic of Japanese ceramics, but in reality of a type entirely alien from native ideas. Though made at Arita, it is usually called by the name of the neighbouring port of Imari, from which it was exported. The style is embodied in jars and dishes generally of large dimensions, decorated in underglaze blue of muddy tone, with dull red, green, purple and yellow enamels and gilding added at a subsequent firing over the glaze. Their effect is occasionally pleasing and handsome, but in general these objects have a dull and lifeless air that places them among the least interesting of all Oriental wares. This style was sometimes copied both at Meissen and at Chelsea during their earlier stages, and suggested some of the designs of the Worcester factory, but it was not till the first decades of the nineteenth century that it was extensively imitated, when the “Japan patterns” of Derby and the Staffordshire works enjoyed a great popularity; it may fairly be said that in the reduced scale necessitated by their application to table wares, and in the livelier colouring obtainable in the English soft porcelain, these patterns gain an attractiveness wanting in their Oriental forerunners.

* * * * *

Other kilns were founded in the neighbourhood of Arita under the protection of feudal lords, by whose patronage they were secured from the debasing effects of foreign trade. Porcelain began to be made about 1660 at the kilns of OKAWAJI, founded at an earlier date for making earthenware by a chief of the Nabeshima family. Here the methods of painting employed were those of the later Arita potters, but the colours are purer and the decoration, designed to please native tastes, is at once less florid and more spontaneous in character.

Fine porcelain was made in the second half of the eighteenth century at MIKAWAJI, also in the province of Hizen, under the munificent patronage of the feudal lord of Hirato. The wares are of two principal types. The first is painted in blue of a quiet grey tone with designs of exquisite delicacy, inspired by the Chinese “blue and white” of the time of Hsüan Tê; and it should be noted that this milder quality of blue was deliberately aimed at by the potters of the best Japanese schools, in preference to the deep sapphire blue attained by the Chinese at their highest period of development. The second class of Mikawaji ware is seen in the skilfully modelled figures of divinities, children, or mythical creatures such as the Corean lion; they are usually enlivened with coloured glazes of three harmonious tones, blue, russet-brown, and black.

* * * * *

Two other Japanese factories remain to be noticed in their relation to Chinese ceramics, in the provinces of Kaga and Kishiu respectively. The kilns at KUTANI in Kaga were established in 1664 and made two distinct classes of ware. One of these is called “_Ao Kutani_,” or green Kutani, from the predominance of green in the colouring, and is characterised by the use of transparent green, yellow, manganese-violet, and blue enamels of great intensity, washed over strong floral or landscape designs drawn in heavy black outline. This type is perfectly exemplified by a fine dish in the series at South Kensington brought together by the Japanese Government in 1876. While it appears to be reminiscent in its methods of the “three colour” class of the Chinese, its artistic character is free from extraneous elements and entirely Japanese in genius. The other type, known _par excellence_ as “_Ko Kutani_,” or old Kutani ware, includes a brilliant red among its colours, and is the ancestor of the red and gold Kaga porcelain of recent times.

PLATE 15

Ewer and Basin, Sèvres, dated 1763, painted with groups of children
in the manner of Boucher on a _jaune jonquille_ ground. Mark of the
decorator Catrice. Ewer, height, 6-5/8 in.; basin, length, 10¾ in.
Jones Collection.

No. 753-1882. See p. 56.

Mark:

The porcelain made in the Nishihama park, near Wakayama in the province of KISHIU, dates only from the earlier years of the nineteenth century, but is of interest as a revival of the early Ming ware with designs in coloured glazes separated by outlines moulded in slight relief; the enamels of the Kishiu kilns produce a wonderful richness of effect, notably where turquoise blue is used in combination with deep violet.

III

ITALIAN PORCELAIN

PLATE 16

Écuelle, with Cover and Stand, Sèvres, dated 1768, with pastoral
subjects after Boucher, by Chabry, on a turquoise-blue ground.
Écuelle, height, 4½ in.; stand, diameter, 4¾ in. Jones Collection.

No. 758-1882. See p. 57.

Mark:

The manufacture of porcelain in Europe has a history of very recent origin when compared with the long story of its invention and development in the land of its birth, but what it lacks in antiquity is atoned for by the interest and diversity of the vicissitudes through which it has passed. We can never know at what period and by whose agency the mysterious substance was first brought into Western lands. From the earliest records that can rightly be supposed to refer to it, we gather that the rare vessels of porcelain which found their way from China in the Middle Ages were regarded with superstitious wonder as the work of superhuman hands, to be treasured as jealously as gold or precious stones. How to rival this ware of pure white surface and translucent substance may well have been the problem that many a potter of those days attempted to solve, but it must have been the despair of the rudely-trained craftsmen whose hands shaped the rough stone-wares of the Rhineland, or the lead-glazed slip-wares, with their artless scratched or moulded designs, of mediæval France and Italy. The road to success was first opened by the potters of the last-named country. The Italian tin-enamelled maiolica, which attained its full development at the end of the fifteenth century, marks the first pronounced step in the advance. It derived its inspiration in the first instance not immediately from Chinese porcelain, but indirectly through the painted earthenware of the Near East and of the Moors in Spain, which was itself evolved in emulation of the Chinese wares. By the early years of the sixteenth century, the latter must have been quite familiar to the Italian maiolica potters, who used the term “_alla porcellana_” to denote a certain type of design in which they sought to imitate the contemporary Oriental “blue and white.”

The mere outward simulation that could be achieved by coating grey earthenware with pure white enamel did not satisfy the keen spirits of an age when every mind was pregnant with new ideas, and no task seemed too gigantic for the artist’s hand. To produce a body which, in substance and surface as well, should equal the object of imitation, must have been the aim of many a pioneer in the art of whose efforts all record has been lost.

If contemporary documents are to be trusted, it would appear that something in the nature of porcelain was made in Italy as early as the first quarter of the sixteenth century; it is not surprising to learn that the scene of the first successful experiments was Venice, a city by that time famous all over Europe for its glass, a substance for the manufacture of which its seaboard situation gave it exceptional advantages. Though the literary evidences for the fabrication are too clear to be reasonably doubted, no piece of this early Venetian porcelain is known to exist at the present day. We reach sure ground towards the end of the century, when we come to the porcelain invented at FLORENCE about 1575 by Francesco de’ Medici, the second Grand Duke of Tuscany. This, the earliest European porcelain of which specimens still survive, is an imperfect artificial porcelain largely compounded of glass. It is mentioned in a letter dated 1576 by the Venetian ambassador at the Tuscan Court. The only dated specimen known is a flask with the arms of Philip II. of Spain and the date 1581, now in the museum at Sèvres. The Grand Duke probably ceased after a short time to take interest in the factory, and it became a private enterprise; of its subsequent fortunes something will be said on a later page.

PLATE 14

Jardinière, Sèvres, dated 1761, painted with cupids on a _rose
Pompadour_ ground. Mark of the decorator Dubois. Height, 7½ in.
Jones Collection.

No. 787-1882. See p. 56.

Mark:

While as regards material the object of emulation was Chinese porcelain, the forms affected by the Medici porcelain show little indication of extraneous influence. By their variety and by the gracefulness of many they bear witness to the taste and inventiveness of the ducal patron, who interested himself personally in the processes of fabrication and was doubtless in artistic matters the guiding spirit of the works. The decoration, painted in cobalt-blue usually of rather dull tone, either alone or outlined with pale manganese-violet, is of two distinct styles. One of these is made up of grotesques of the kind familiar in the later maiolica of the Urbino school. The other style is marked by Oriental motives, derived in some cases from Chinese, but more often from Near Eastern sources. The designs are never mere copies, but rather interpretations of their prototypes; often indeed they betray only slight traces of the inspiration to which they are due.

The last-named class of design is well exemplified by the bottle in Plate 10, one of the four pieces of Medici porcelain belonging to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The subtle shapeliness of the modelling and the ably-distributed painted ornament, in which a slight suggestion of the contemporary Chinese “blue and white” of Wan Li is perceptible, betoken the work of an artist whose conceptions were superior to the material at his disposal for their embodiment.

* * * * *

From the scanty documents that remain, it would appear that the venture of Francesco de’ Medici was abandoned for a time, and that his successor Ferdinand I. summoned to Florence one Niccolò Sisti for the purpose of re-establishing there the manufacture of porcelain. The kilns were later removed to PISA, and a document exists to prove that in 1620 Sisti received monetary aid for his work from the then-reigning Grand Duke, Cosmo II. In the light of these records, meagre as they are, the greatest interest attaches to the little bowl figuring in Plate 11, one of the most precious documentary pieces of porcelain in the South Kensington collections; it was formerly in the possession of Mr. Henry Griffith and later belonged to Mr. Henry Willett of Brighton, on whose death it was acquired for the Museum. This bowl is of remarkably thin material, light to handle, and shows a somewhat yellow tone in the paste by transmitted light. The design painted round the outside consists of four alternate sprays of hyacinth and lily, separated by flowers resembling scabious or cornflower branching from a curved serrated leaf; these motives are obviously borrowed from the Turkish earthenware of the period. In a medallion inside the bowl is a view of a city with a domed building; on the bottom are the initials “G. G. P. F.” and the date 1638.

The only other piece hitherto identified as belonging to the same kind is another bowl, in the collection of Mr. Montague Yeats Brown. Like its companion, it is light in weight and thin in the walls. It is decorated round the sides externally and internally with a frieze of birds perched upon rocks; inside is a medallion with a group of ruins among trees, curiously anticipating the fanciful compositions seen on Worcester and Bow china of the eighteenth century. In the painting there appear in addition to cobalt-blue two colours of common occurrence in the maiolica of the Urbino school, a strong brownish-orange and a greenish-blue derived from copper, the latter much blurred in the firing. This bowl also bears a signature and date, “I. G. P. F. 1627”, and it is of extreme interest to observe that both bowls are marked with the same devices, a cross potent and a curious aggregation of strokes, of which the significance is difficult to determine; evidently these signs are the distinctive mark of the factory. The meaning of the initials is also uncertain, but in view of the known existence of the Sisti factory at Pisa a few years before the date on the earlier bowl, it may be conjectured that the last letters “P. F.”, occurring in both signatures alike, stand for “_Pisanus fecit_” or “_Pisano fece_”; if that be so, the preceding “G” may indicate the family name of the potters who took over from Sisti the secret of porcelain making, while the “I” and the first “G” respectively refer to the baptismal names of different members of the family. Be this as it may, these two bowls, unique in the nature of their paste and decoration and by reason of the dates they bear, are of the utmost interest as isolated landmarks in the history of European porcelain, standing midway between the production of Francesco de’ Medici and the earliest French achievements.

* * * * *

The Tuscan experiments above recorded were made at an unpropitious time, and were consequently destined to have no lasting effect in the development of European ceramics. Italy was then fast relapsing into the state of torpor which followed as a reaction from her restless activities in the age of the renaissance, and the time had not yet arrived when the influx of Chinese porcelain, resulting from the extension of trade relations with the East, was to spur on the potters and chemists of Europe, aided by royal patronage, to success in their efforts to produce a similar kind of ware. Porcelain is not heard of again in Italy till about 1720, when Francesco Vezzi, a Venetian goldsmith, in co-operation with a deserter from the Saxon royal factory, succeeded for a short time in producing hard porcelain of a type similar to that of Meissen. At a later date another Saxon workman named Hewelcke set up a short-lived factory in VENICE, but no porcelain of importance was produced there till the establishment of the works of Geminiano Cozzi in 1765.

The chief Italian factory was that at DOCCIA near Florence, founded by the Marchese Carlo Ginori in 1735 and still kept up by his descendants. His aim was to compete with the porcelain imported from Saxony, and he succeeded in his efforts without the princely support by which alone in most European countries the manufacture was saved from failure. He obtained the assistance of an expert from the factory at Vienna, Carl Wendelin Anreiter, of whose painted work on porcelain rare specimens are occasionally met with. The earliest Doccia productions showed distinct signs of Meissen influence, as may be seen from a soup-bowl in the Victoria and Albert Museum; this has a basket-work rim of the Meissen type, and is decorated with genre scenes from Italian peasant life in medallions, surrounded by tendrils in red and gold and small panels of lilac colour. Other pieces of the same service bear the mark of a Doccia painter, Pietro Fanciullacci. At a later stage the Ginori works became famous for their large reproductions in white porcelain of antique statues in the Florentine palaces, such as the Crouching Venus and the Apollo Belvedere.

* * * * *

The celebrated royal factory at CAPODIMONTE, near Naples, is said to owe its origin to a present of Meissen porcelain made to Charles III., King of the Two Sicilies, in 1736, when he married the Saxon princess Maria Amelia. Its earliest productions were in white porcelain moulded with shells, coral, and other marine decorations, but its fame is more specially founded on the services with mythological subjects minutely picked out in enamel colours. As at Doccia, the inborn genius of the Italians for modelling was exhibited in figures and elaborate statuettes, in which drapery and flesh are usually tinted after nature. A characteristic example is a large allegorical composition at Kensington, supported on four figures copied from the crouching Turkish slaves (“_I quattro Mori_”) by Pietro Tacca, which surround the monument of Ferdinand I. of Tuscany in the harbour at Leghorn; modelling and colouring alike display the tendency to exaggeration and sensationalism characteristic of Italian art in the period of decadence. When Charles III. succeeded in 1759 to the throne of Spain, he removed with him to the palace of BUEN RETIRO, near Madrid, the whole establishment of his Neapolitan factory; the Madrid porcelain is of a similar kind to that made before the transfer of the works.

The later factory carried on at NAPLES under Ferdinand IV. shows the influence of the excavations at Herculaneum in the severe classical style by which it is marked. Painted views of the district of Naples and of the local antiquities are a favourite feature. At the same time the works gained some renown by the cleverly modelled statuettes in biscuit china of greyish tone made under the direction of Filippo Tagliolini.

IV

FRENCH PORCELAIN

PLATE 19

Vase, Sèvres, given in 1780 by Gustavus III. of Sweden to Catherine
II. of Russia. Decorated by Morin, Fontaine, and Le Guay on a _bleu
de roi_ ground. Height, 19½ in. Jones Collection.

No. 781-1882. See p. 59.

Mark:

The Florentine experiments and the Pisa bowls remain as solitary relics in the story of European porcelain until the year 1673, when the scene is shifted to France. At this date a privilege was granted for making porcelain to Edme Poterat, of St. Sever, a suburb of Rouen, in the name of his son Louis. Since 1644 he had been working as a _faïencier_ as lessee of the Sieur Poirel de Grandval, _huissier de cabinet_ to Anne of Austria; the Sieur Poirel had been granted an exclusive licence for making faïence in the province of Normandy. The manufacture of porcelain at Rouen was not continued for long after the death of Poterat in 1694, in consequence of a dispute between his sons, which resulted in their privilege being withdrawn. The nature of this earliest French porcelain is established by a few pieces, which there are sufficient grounds for supposing to be authentic. One of these is at South Kensington, a tall cup finely fashioned in a paste of bluish tone and carefully painted in a strong underglaze blue; the design consists of small vases of flowers amid formal _lambrequin_ ornament below a castellated border.

A point of special interest in connection with the earliest French experiments is that, while the efforts of their authors were consciously directed at the emulation of Oriental porcelain, the style of decoration adopted by them was thoroughly French, showing hardly any trace of Chinese influence. The surviving Rouen specimens are closely similar in their ornament to the faïence produced by the factory in which they were made. The same is true of the porcelain manufactured, for the first time in Europe on a commercial scale, at ST. CLOUD, near Paris. This factory was started by a Rouen potter named Pierre Chicaneau for the making of earthenware. As the result of experiments made shortly before his death, Chicaneau could boast of producing objects in porcelain “_presqu’aussi parfait que les porcelaines de la Chine et des Indes_.” His widow and family continued the work he had begun, and in 1702 were granted letters patent by Louis XIV.; the factory was subsequently carried on by Henri Trou, second husband of Chicaneau’s widow. The jar reproduced in Plate 12 illustrates admirably the style in vogue at the St. Cloud works. Formal devices adapted from Rouen faïence and inspired by the designs of Bérain, are symmetrically disposed as borders, leaving a large part of the surface free, so as to display to full advantage the soft tone of the glaze. The sense of fitness and proportion never absent from the best French work asserts itself as much in the painted ornament as in the rich ormolu mount with which the jar is embellished. The legs of console outline and the rayed masks between them are typical forms of the art of Louis XIV.’s reign; instinct as they are with sober dignity, they are saved from stiffness of effect by the contrast of the band of running foliage engraved on the collar round the top of the jar.

Painting in blue under the glaze was the predominant manner of decoration at St. Cloud. In other cases the porcelain is left white, and only moulded ornaments are used; these are either copied directly from the Chinese Fuchien porcelain,--here at last Oriental motives appear,--or they exhibit a hybrid mingling of classical and Chinese forms. The latter type is seen in a fine soup-tureen in the Fitzhenry gift at South Kensington; it is moulded with pseudo-Oriental cranes and foliage in relief above a gadrooned border, and has grotesque mask handles and a knob in the form of a cabbage. The tureen is of special interest because to the relief decoration has been added enamel colouring in primrose-yellow, green, and pale red; an examination of the piece discloses on the bottom, not only the incised mark of Henri Trou, but also a _fleur-de-lys_ in overglaze blue, showing that the colouring was added at the Spanish royal factory of Buen Retiro. Another tureen in the same collection has polychrome painting executed at St. Cloud, a typical example of a rare class; in a strong orange-yellow, green, purple, red and blue are depicted Oriental figures and a motive of a bird singing among trees by a wattled hedge, borrowed from the Japanese Kakiyemon.

* * * * *

The life of the St. Cloud works was a long one,--it lasted till 1766, having survived a disastrous fire in 1737,--and its output must have been considerable; yet it had little direct influence on the subsequent history of ceramics. It is indeed interesting to note here the existence at Kensington of a _seau_ in Staffordshire salt-glazed stoneware with relief ornament copied from a St. Cloud model; but this is an isolated case, and imitations of St. Cloud are not common even among the productions of French factories. A different tale can be told of the next in importance of the early French china works. The factory founded in 1725 by Louis-Henri de Bourbon, prince de Condé, on his domain at CHANTILLY, was destined to hold a position of more than transient significance. Not only were styles of decoration devised there which became popular beyond the Channel as well as in France itself; Chantilly has a greater claim to recognition in that it was two Chantilly workmen who initiated the greatest of all European enterprises of this kind, the royal and national manufactory at Sèvres.

Before entering into details of this passage in the course of events, some account must be given of the productions of the parent factory. The prince de Condé chose for his director one Ciquaire Cirou, who appears to have been a faïence-maker, and obtained royal recognition by a grant of letters patent in 1735. The distinguishing element in the earlier Chantilly porcelain is the use as a surface-coating of the same tin-enamel which is the generic feature of faïence. For some ten years the Chantilly potters confined their artistic efforts as far as painting was concerned to adaptations or often close imitations of Oriental porcelain of the preceding decades, of which the princely patron had a rich collection. The Chinese _famille verte_ supplied the motives in a few instances, but the wares which suggested to Cirou and his painters their daintiest designs were the work of Kakiyemon. Few things have been made to display more effectively the delicate freshness which is the crowning virtue of painted porcelain. The warm tone of the stanniferous glaze yields a softer ground for the flower-like hues of the enamel colours than the colder white of the Japanese prototypes, while the _esprit_ of the French interpreter adds to the charming Eastern themes just that homeliness of touch which endears them to Western beholders. No better illustration could be furnished than by the little silver-mounted _pot de toilette_ from Mr. Fitzhenry’s gift to the nation, figured in Plate 13. Little Japanese boys at play, houses perched among fir-trees on rocky crags, tiny birds and butterflies are scattered with an unimpeachable sense of fitness over the creamy white surface; all, down to the mark on the bottom, a _cour de chasse_ in red enamel, is drawn with the greatest neatness.

A ground colour of pure primrose-yellow is sometimes seen in pieces of this early period, borrowed doubtless from Meissen, and foreshadowing the sumptuous coloured grounds of Vincennes and Sèvres. This is well exemplified by a large jardinière with rococo ormolu mounting, also in the Fitzhenry gift. At a later date less distinctive manners were adopted, bouquets of flowers of the Meissen type, cupids in the style of Boucher, and rococo-panelled designs. The manufacture was commercialised and the quality of the wares rapidly deteriorated, but still a good word may be said for the blue festooned borders which are a common feature in Chantilly services, and are an admirable pattern of what designs in table ware should be. An instance is the service made for Louis Philippe, duc d’Orléans, for use at his château of Villers-Cotterets; a plate from this set is in the Kensington collection.

* * * * *

Two other minor factories of soft-paste china call for a passing notice, those of MENNECY and Sceaux, both near Paris. The former appears to have been first established in Paris itself, and in 1748 transferred to a site at Mennecy on the estate of the duc de Villeroy, who supported it with his patronage. In 1773, on the expiration of their lease, the directors of the works removed their plant to Bourg-la-Reine, where they came under the protection of the comte d’Eu. The factory was in the main confined to the production of small articles for the boudoir, to which their simple decoration of bouquets or brightly-plumaged birds is well enough suited. Objects for purely ornamental purposes are seldom met with. In Mr. Fitzhenry’s gift there is a pair of vases on high pedestals of the form known from its antique prototype as the “_vase Médicis_,” finely painted with birds in landscapes. It may be remarked that the polychrome flower-painting of Mennecy often bears a close resemblance to that of early Chelsea. Figures were turned out in considerable quantities. The earlier ones are generally left white, and show not only a sense of the grotesque but also much artistic feeling in their breadth of modelling. The later figures with polychrome painting, somewhat childish conceptions, it is true, are yet not without a certain grace and daintiness; an important set of groups of children with musical instruments in the Fitzhenry Collection belongs to this class.

The works at SCEAUX, dating back apparently to 1749, are noteworthy for the skilfulness of their flower-paintings; the tints are brilliant yet harmonious, while the drawing is executed with remarkable care and sureness of touch.

* * * * *

The royal manufactory of SÈVERES, destined to enjoy a fame greater than that of any other in Europe, had its origin in a combination of circumstances from which at first no great results might have been expected. Orry de Fulvy, _intendant des finances_ to Louis XV., had long been interested in experiments for making porcelain, when at Vincennes in 1738 he came across two workmen from Chantilly, the brothers Dubois, to whom reference has already been made. They had been allowed secretly to set up a kiln in the precincts of the château. De Fulvy gave them his support, and their operations were continued at his expense. The Dubois were subsequently dismissed as incompetent, and the venture was in danger of abandonment; but after many vicissitudes De Fulvy’s perseverance was crowned with success, and in 1745 he was able to form a company for the manufacture under royal privilege. For eleven years the works were carried on at Vincennes, but in 1756 they were transferred to new premises at Sèvres, on the other side of Paris, at a convenient distance from the royal palace of Versailles; three years previously the company had been reorganised under an exclusive privilege, the king himself holding a quarter of the shares, while the royal interest in the undertaking was signalised by the stipulation that its productions should be marked with the royal cipher of two interlaced “L”s.

From the outset the wares were given a high artistic quality. Duplessis, goldsmith to the king, was charged in 1747 with the control of the modellers; he kept the workshops under close personal supervision, and to his guiding influence is attributable the originality and unfailing taste of the shapes adopted. Hellot, director of the Academy of Sciences, was in charge of the chemical composition of the materials, while Bachelier was at the head of the painters and gilders. Drawings of figure-subjects were supplied by François Boucher for the painted decoration, as well as for translation into the round by the modellers; an instance of the latter process is the fine biscuit group of Leda modelled from Boucher’s design by Fernex, a painted version of the same subject being in the National Museum at Stockholm.

The rare pieces surviving from the earliest stage of the factory’s existence show clearly the aim which De Fulvy set himself of competing with the Saxon porcelain; the landscapes or river-scenes painted on them, with miniature groups of figures and buildings, are evidently inspired by the Meissen subjects of the period. The same is true of the coloured grounds with medallions in reserve which made their appearance shortly afterwards, but the colours used for the purpose were entirely new. The earliest of these was the deep blue (“_gros bleu_”) from which was subsequently developed the famous “_bleu de roi_.” The researches of Hellot bore fruit later in the discovery of the _rose Pompadour_ pink and turquoise-blue. A feature of the earliest years of the factory before its removal from Vincennes were the artificial flowers modelled in porcelain, which amounted in value to over three-fourths of the total output.

None of the pieces in our illustrations are of the primitive period. They represent several of the Sèvres ground colours. Plate 14 shows a jardinière with openwork socket painted with cupids and flowers in panels reserved on a _rose Pompadour_ ground. It is marked with the royal cipher enclosing the date-letter I, for 1761, and with a branch of foliage, the mark of the painter Jean René Dubois.

PLATE 20

Vase, with Cover, Meissen, Marcolini period, about 1780. Height,
11-7/8 in. Jones Collection.

No. 837-1882. See p. 68.

Mark

The ewer and basin in Plate 15 are dated 1763 and have the mark of the decorator Catrice. On a ground of yellow (_jaune jonquille_) are rococo-bordered panels with charming miniatures of children painted, with the exception of the flesh tints, _en camaïeu_ in blue. This manner of painting in a monochrome of blue or crimson is a survival from an earlier period, in which it is often found as the sole decoration on a plain white ground; the simple contours of the shapes also point back to an early style.

The _écuelle_ or soup-bowl with cover and stand, shown in Plate 16, selected like the last two pieces from the Jones Collection, is an example of the most sumptuous style of Sèvres applied to the decoration of porcelain for useful purposes. It bears the date-letter “P” for 1768. The panels with pastoral scenes in colours by Chabry fils follow closely the manner of Boucher, if he did not actually supply the designs for them; with the rich gilt scrollwork borders and the turquoise ground they blend in an ensemble of splendid but harmonious effect, admirably in keeping with the gracefully-modelled shapes. Another specimen of Sèvres table ware of a simpler class is the jug reproduced in Plate 17, with lid attached by a silver hinge. On the bottom are the date-letter for 1770 and the mark of the flower-painter Bouillat fils.

The subject of the next drawing, a vase in the Jones Collection, with classical busts in medallions raised above an apple-green ground, brings us to the year 1772, with which by the death of the director Boileau the most prosperous epoch of the factory’s career came to a close. When compared with the previous illustrations, a distinct change of style is noticeable; not a trace of the rococo of Louis XV. is to be seen, while the laurel-wreath round the foot and the classical ornament surrounding the cameo-like medallion betoken the adoption of the severer and simpler style associated with the following reign. The transition to antique forms and ornament came about in Sèvres china more gradually than in other branches of French applied art, partly on account of the fact that in many cases the artists and workmen in the factory were succeeded by their sons, who kept up the traditions they had learned from their parents. The change in the directorship and the succession of the new king two years later finally determined the abandonment of the old style.

PLATE 25

Teapot, Chelsea, from a service painted with pseudo-Chinese figures
in the style of Watteau, on a claret-coloured ground. Height, 5-3/8
in. Bequest of Miss Emily H. Thomson, of Dover.

No. 517-1902. See p. 82.

Mark: an anchor in gold.

The vase represented in Plate 19 is typical of the new tendencies. It embodies to perfection the graceful French interpretation of classical art associated with the name of Louis XVI. The vase is noteworthy not only as a splendid exponent of the powers of the royal manufacture, but also on account of its historical associations. It was made in 1780, and was given by Gustavus III., King of Sweden, as a present to the empress Catherine II. of Russia; the gift was the outcome of an unexpected turn of events, resulting from the war between England and her American colonies. The state of hostilities at sea was a grave menace to the commerce of the northern countries, and an alliance was formed on 1st August 1780, between Sweden, Denmark, and Russia, powers at that time usually at variance, to ensure the safety of their merchant fleets. Gustavus III., who himself played the rôle of Augustus in Swedish history, had a great admiration for the genius of the Russian empress. He was at the time absent from his kingdom on a long tour in the South, in the course of which he had doubtless had opportunities of forming a personal judgment of the merits of the French royal porcelain. It is not surprising therefore that he should have thought of a set of Sèvres china as a suitable present to mark the occasion of the treaty; he invoked to assist him in his choice a friend of earlier days, the writer Marmontel, to whom he communicated his desires through his ambassador at the French Court, the baron de Staël. The circumstances of the purchase are fully related in the letter dated 29th August 1780, by which Marmontel informed the director of the factory, Regnier, of the selection he had made at the works. Of five pieces chosen to make up a _garniture de cheminée_, one is the vase before us, and it is worth while to cite the words in which it is described: “_Un grand vase bleu de roi et or, avec un cartouche représentant une marine marchande. Dans ce petit tableau deux hommes sont occupés à lire dans un livre posé sur un tonneau. Je suis convenu avec le peintre que sur le livre il écrivoit ces mots que je vais tracer figurativement_:

| _Neutra- | _Catherine II._ |
| lite | |
| armée_ | _Gustave III._ |

_Il faut que ces caractères soient en émail et l’on m’a promis que cette petite besogne seroit faite aujourd’hui._”

The remaining four pieces of the set were a pair of figures representing Pygmalion and Prometheus, and two small cornucopia vases. Instructions were given for the figures to be inscribed with verses of Marmontel’s own composition, highly flattering to the imperial recipient of the present. The letter concludes with a request that the goods might be despatched without delay to the Swedish king, who was awaiting them at Spa. The price paid for the vase was 720 _livres_, and for the complete set 1896 _livres_.

The subsequent story of the vase is not fully known, but it may be surmised that it left Russia on the occasion of a great fire at the palace of Czarskoë Selo, when it is recorded that many pieces now scattered in various museums were stolen from the celebrated turquoise-blue service of Sèvres china ordered by Catherine II. in 1788. The vase was bought by Mr. Jones in 1880 at the sale of the San Donato Palace at Florence, and is now housed with the rest of his bequest to the nation. It remains only to mention that the marine subject in the style of Joseph Vernet is the work of Morin, the bouquet of flowers in the reverse medallion is by Fontaine, while the gilding was done by Le Guay, whose signature with the royal cipher is painted under the base.

A brief allusion has already been made to the sculpture in biscuit china, which was among the most remarkable work done at Sèvres during the time of its prosperity. The enamelled figures in the Meissen style, made in the earliest stages at Vincennes, were soon superseded in popularity by those in biscuit, a much better vehicle for reproducing delicate modelling. The high artistic merit attained by them was due to the guiding genius of the sculptor Falconet, who was in charge of the modellers from 1757 for nearly ten years; he himself provided the models for nearly all the figures made during that period, the traditions set by him being maintained by his successors. His nice sense of the capabilities of his material is manifest alike in graceful genre and pastoral subjects and in works of more elevated conception, such as the Pygmalion group already mentioned.

PLATE 27

Vase, with Cover, Worcester, about 1760, with design adapted from
the Japanese. Height, 11 in. Schreiber Collection.

No. 480. See p. 85.

Unmarked.

PLATE 28

Vase, with Cover, Bristol, 1770-1781, painted with exotic birds in
the Sèvres manner. Height, 15 in. Schreiber Collection.

No. 740. See p. 87.

Unmarked.

After the death of Bachelier the factory was hampered by mismanagement and financial difficulties; the consequent deterioration in its productions was precipitated by the French Revolution, which marks the close of its most glorious epoch. The artistic level reached in the last years of Louis XV. was never again attained until recent times; the success of the factory was the outcome of the peculiar excellence of the Sèvres soft-paste for the display of gilding and painting in enamel colours, and the abandonment of this class of body was inevitably followed by an artistic decline. At quite an early stage of the factory’s career experiments were made with a view to discovering in France the materials for true hard porcelain like that of China and Germany. The success of those researches in 1765 was the prelude to the complete adoption of the new material, when the works were rescued by Napoleon from the state of adversity into which they had sunk in the revolutionary period. For some years before the fall of Louis XVI. both soft and hard-paste were made concurrently; an early example of the latter is a cup and saucer in the Jones Collection, painted with the shield of France supported by an eagle and a dolphin, made to commemorate the birth of the ill-fated Dauphin in 1781. Under the Empire and the restored monarchy everything was done that could be effected by rich gilding and highly-finished painting to bring back the magnificence of former years, and the new material made possible dimensions never attempted before; witness is borne by the huge vase in the Sèvres Museum representing the arrival in Paris of the artistic spoils of Napoleon’s Italian conquests, and another with a frieze depicting the athletic sports of ancient Greece. France suffered perhaps less than other countries from the general debasement of art in that age, but the redeeming charm of the eighteenth century styles was gone, and with it the glory of the Sèvres factory; its artistic recovery with the return of French prosperity under the Third Republic belongs to recent history.

* * * * *

Before leaving the subject of French porcelain, something must be said of the cluster of PARISIAN FACTORIES for making hard-paste china, which arose in many cases under Court patronage after the introduction of the new material at Sèvres. The exclusive privileges of the royal factory, designed to repress all attempts at competition within the borders of France, had been one by one abandoned, having become gradually of no effect. In 1787 complete liberty was accorded to all French manufacturers to pursue all the methods employed at Sèvres, including the jealously-protected use of gilding. As a rule only useful wares were made in the smaller factories, but these were often of considerable merit. The use of gold as the only decoration on a white ground became increasingly popular, and much charming ware is ornamented in this manner. A typical instance may be cited in the spirit-kettle made at the Clignancourt works, comprised in the series of Parisian hard-paste in the Fitzhenry gift. The affectation by these small factories of classical forms is exemplified in the same collection by a ewer with oblong basin decorated in gold and blue, made in the duc d’Angoulême’s kilns in the rue Bondy, which are also famous for the pretty cornflower-sprig pattern afterwards popular in English china.

PLATE 26

Vase, Chelsea-Derby, 1770-1784, with handles in the form of female
terminal figures in biscuit porcelain; on the front a medallion
with the subject of Celadon and Amelia. Height, 15¼ in. Jones
Collection.

No. 825-1882. See p. 84.

Mark: an anchor in gold.

V

GERMAN PORCELAIN

While the efforts to imitate Chinese porcelain first led to lasting results by the invention of soft-paste porcelain in France, the credit belongs to Germany of discovering and introducing into Europe the art of making true hard-paste porcelain of the Chinese type. The discovery was the outcome of researches not originally directed to this end. The romantic story of Johann Friedrich Böttger, the chemist to whom it was due, is well known: how he claimed to possess the secret of making gold, how he fled from Berlin across the Saxon border to avoid the covetous attentions of the King of Prussia, how he was promptly visited with the fate he wished to escape, at the hands of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and how he spent a great part of a short life in fruitless efforts to make gold by alchemistic means for replenishing the Elector’s coffers. It was only when the needs of Augustus had become the more pressing, in consequence of the exhausting war with Sweden through which he lost the Polish Crown, that his optimistic credulity was in danger of being overtaxed. Böttger foresaw that the Elector could no longer be duped, and the happy idea was suggested to him, probably by the chemist Von Tschirnhausen, of drawing a blind over his failure by another plan for enriching his royal master. The latter was foremost among the sovereigns of Europe as an amateur of the porcelain at that time being imported by Dutch merchants from the Far East; he was therefore likely to view with favour Böttger’s new scheme, which was no other than the restoration of Saxony’s prosperity by the establishment in the country of ceramic industries, and particularly of porcelain factories on the Chinese lines. All Böttger’s efforts were now turned in this direction. In 1708 a “_Steinbäckerei_” was started at Dresden for the manufacture of tiles, and shortly after Böttger’s celebrated red stoneware was invented. In 1710 he obtained a royal patent for the foundation of a porcelain factory; the site chosen for it was the fortress of Albrechtsburg, near MEISSEN, and in the course of the year the first samples were submitted to the Elector, two small cups with enamel decoration, still in the royal collection at Dresden. So began the manufacture of hard-paste china in Europe.

The porcelain made at Meissen before Böttger’s death derived its shape in part from contemporary metalwork of the baroque style, and partly from the Elector’s Chinese collection; statuettes were also modelled, after the caricatures of the French etcher Callot. Varied methods of decoration were attempted. Lace-like borders inspired by French designs were executed in enamel colours, or in gold, silver, or lustre; we also find miniature hunting-scenes, such as are seen on Bohemian and Silesian drinking-glasses of the period, applied in gold leaf thickly laid on in slight relief.

PLATE 3

Bowl, Chinese, bearing the mark of the Emperor Chia Ching
(1522-1566) of the Ming dynasty. Height, 2-7/8 in.

No. 1616-1876. See p. 12.

Mark:

Plate, Chinese, jointed in colours of the _famille rose_, with a
bird perched on the branch of a plum-tree. Period of Yung Chêng
(1723-1735). Diameter, 8-1/8 in. Cope Bequest.

No. 600-1903. See p. 25.

Unmarked.

After Böttger’s death in 1719 the painter Herold became the leading spirit of the factory, and painting began to play the chief rôle in the decoration of the wares. The earlier French borders gave place for a time to faithful copies of Oriental patterns selected from the royal collection, those of the Japanese Kakiyemon being specially in favour. By 1730 a distinctive Meissen style had arisen, characterised by simple baroque forms and a decoration of panels enclosed with borders of delicate symmetrical scrollwork in gold and colours, often reserved on a monochrome ground; the panels are filled either with groups of pseudo-Chinese figures, or with landscape subjects depicting wide open country with broad rivers, reminiscent of the lowland scenery to the north of Dresden.

The appointment of the sculptor Johann Joachim Kändler, in 1731, to be superintendent of the modellers, led to a revolution in the character of the wares. If painted figure-subjects were introduced, the favourite themes were gallant parties of ladies and gentlemen in the manner of Watteau, but relief ornament and not painting now became the leading feature; the style adopted in the modelling was a modified form of the French rococo, and impressed itself on the productions of most of the German factories which sprang up in rivalry with Meissen. The very spirit of the German rococo is embodied in the countless figures and groups, destined among other purposes to form part of table-services as decorative “_Tafelaufsätze_,” which were modelled during this period by Kändler and his associates; as we shall see later, they were extensively copied in the earliest English china works. The development of sculpture in porcelain inaugurated at Meissen is a branch of the art in which Europe attained a proficiency absolutely unknown in China; the German factories in particular excelled in their skill in this class of work.

The state of warfare in which Germany was plunged about the middle of the century was a serious check to the progress of the works. When peace was restored in 1763, a new spirit began to manifest itself, contemporaneously with the addition to the staff of the French modeller Acier. The change was completed under the directorship of Count Camillo Marcolini, which lasted from 1774 to 1814. Just as in music, an art in which Germany enjoyed at that time an unquestioned supremacy, the sprightly melodies of Haydn gave place to the graver harmonies of Beethoven, so in porcelain too the altered mood of the age was reflected. Florid rococo forms were abandoned and replaced by the severer contours and simpler decoration of the classic style of Louis XVI. The philosophic sentimentalism of the day was not interested in the pretty but aimless frivolities of the Watteau school, and subjects of an entirely different order were chosen to fill panels and medallions. A service at South Kensington is painted with a series of careful miniatures in illustration of Goethe’s _Sorrows of Werther_, a work in which the spirit of the age is characteristically expressed. Other favourite themes were Angelica Kauffmann’s renderings of the more sentimental stories of classical mythology.

The Meissen vase chosen for illustration in Plate 20, one of a set of three in the Jones Bequest, dates from the earlier years of Count Marcolini’s management. The slight decoration of dainty and pleasing effect allows the fine qualities of the paste to be fully appreciated. The various ornamental features embody in characteristic manner the ideas of the age. The symmetrical amphora form, the square architectural plinth, the wreaths of oak on the cover and foot, point to the new interest awakened in ancient, more particularly Roman, art by the publication of the antiquities of Herculaneum; the garlands and festoons of forget-me-nots recall the sentiment of an age that amused itself with the study of the “language of flowers.”

* * * * *

The Meissen factory had not long been working before its success suggested the introduction of the manufacture of porcelain in other German states, and in less than fifty years from the date of the royal patent of Augustus the Strong, a porcelain factory was considered a necessary adjunct to the Court of even the minor German rulers. The influence of Meissen is everywhere apparent, but individuality shown in various directions by a few of the rivals entitles them to special mention. The seniority amongst these belongs to VIENNA, where a factory was set up as early as 1718 by a Dutchman with the help of workmen who had escaped from Meissen; in 1744 it became an imperial institution. The style of the wares followed closely on that of the parent works, until financial embarrassments led to a complete reorganisation under Baron von Sorgenthal in 1784. The change was heralded by the adoption of severely angular shapes, and of romantic or mythological subjects pictorially rendered, within elaborate borders composed of classical motives carried out in rich highly-burnished gilding on panels of gorgeous colouring; the true qualities of porcelain were forgotten in the effort to arrive at the highest pitch of sumptuous richness.

* * * * *

The factory of HÖCHST, under the patronage of the Elector of Mainz, famous for its figures of children modelled by Johann Peter Melchior, was also founded with the help of a Meissen artist. Again, it was his marriage with a Saxon princess that awakened in the Elector of Bavaria, Max Josef III., the desire to possess his own porcelain kilns. These were erected at first at Neudeck, near Munich, and were removed in 1758 to NYMPHENBURG. Thanks to an Italian sculptor, Franz Bastelli, the Bavarian factory takes foremost rank in Germany for its statuettes; whether characters from the Italian comedy, or dancing cavaliers and ladies, they display in their crisp, nervous lines, a spontaneity tempered by masterly restraint which is best appreciated when the white porcelain is left to speak for itself, unobscured by the application of enamel colouring.

* * * * *

The Duke of Württemberg’s factory at the _Residenzstadt_ of LUDWIGSBURG, near Stuttgart, was founded in 1758, a propitious moment for starting a new enterprise of the kind, as Meissen and other factories in northern Germany were suffering from the effects of a long-protracted war. Under the directorship of Ringler, who had previously gained experience at Vienna and Neudeck, the works speedily reached a high pitch of efficiency. In figures they were stamped at an earlier date than other German works with the new ideas of classicism, through the influence of the sculptor who was appointed in 1759 to superintend the modelling, Wilhelm Beyer of Gotha. As the result of prolonged residence in Rome and Naples he was deeply imbued with the spirit of antique sculpture. He understood well how to temper the cold serenity of the antique so as to suit the taste of an emotional age; at the same time he knew how to modify classical forms in compliance with the exigencies of his material, nor did he, like later porcelain-modellers of the classical school, renounce the charms of glaze and colour. The classical feeling makes itself felt as much in his pastoral groups as in his renderings of mythological subjects.

PLATE 4

Ewer, Chinese, period of Wan Li (1573-1619), with contemporary
brass mount of Augsburg workmanship. Height, 12¼ in.

No. 174-1879. See p. 13.

Mark: _Fu_ (“Happiness”) in seal character.

Whilst Beyer was the pioneer of the classical in porcelain figures, the Ludwigsburg factory was slow to abandon the rococo style in its table wares. The exceptionally graceful forms which they assume are typified by the coffee-pot in Mr. Fitzhenry’s collection, represented in Plate 21. The gilt scrollwork under the lip shows the rococo at its best. The mark on the bottom is the cipher of Duke Carl Eugen, a double “C” under a ducal crown.

* * * * *