Chapter I: Pottery (2)

He decorated a “grotto” with his famous pottery at the Château of Ecouen for his patron the Constable de Montmorency, and similar grottoes at the Tuileries, and at Reux, in Normandy, for Catherine de’ Medici. Palissy made other forms of pottery besides his rustic pieces, such as ewers, bottles, hunting flasks, and dishes, ornamented with figures and other work. It is likely that the figure work was executed by his sons or relatives, Nicholas and Mathurin Palissy, who worked for Catherine de’ Medici on the Tuileries grotto. Many of the Palissy wares are similar in design to the _étains_ and pewter works of Briot and of other artists, as Prieur, Rosso, Gauthier, and Primaticcio. Openwork baskets and dishes and other modelled works were covered with the jasper glaze. Of the invention of the latter Palissy does not seem to have communicated the secret to his successors, for after his death the jasper glaze was imitated, but without much success, as appears evident from some specimens that are now in existence which were made from his moulds.

Palissy was nearly all his life engaged in lecturing on scientific and other subjects, and in the work of proselytism for the Reformed Church of which he was a member, being in prison more than once on account of his religious ideas, and eventually died in the Bastille Prison in poverty in 1590 at the age of eighty.

As efforts of decorative design the encrusted wares of Palissy cannot be placed in a high rank of decorative art, but the art of France would be considerably poorer without the genius of Palissy, an artist of whom any nation might be justly proud.

NEVERS, ROUEN, AND MOUSTIERS WARES.

We have mentioned before that some maiolica artists and workmen came from Italy in the sixteenth century to Nevers and Lyons and there set up potteries. One of these artists, named Scipio Gambin, worked at Nevers, under the patronage of the Duc de Nivernais.

The maiolica productions at Nevers were in imitation of the Urbino, Castel-Durante, and Faenza wares, but the colours were inferior, probably owing to the poorer glaze used by the French potters. The subjects of the decoration were at first similar to the “istoriati” decoration of the Urbino ware, and were compositions from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” (Fig. 51) or from the Bible. Later on the potters of Nevers imitated the shapes of Oriental pottery with French decorations (Fig. 52).

In 1608 two Italians—the brothers Conrade—came from Genoa to Nevers, and were probably the successors of Gambin: the ware made by them was decorated with a mixture of Chinese and Italian ornament, and the colouring was blue, manganese, brown, and white.

In 1632 a Frenchman named Pierre Custode and his sons established a pottery at the sign of “The Ostrich” at Nevers. To them is ascribed the beautiful Persian blue-coloured pottery decorated with naturalistic flowers and birds in solid white with yellow heightenings, the shape and decoration being Chinese in character. The blue glaze peculiar to Nevers pottery of this period is very fine, and has been imitated by French and foreign potters, but without success.

The great importation of Chinese porcelain into Europe in the seventeenth century and at the beginning of the eighteenth had a strong influence on the art of the Nevers pottery, and many pieces exist on which Chinese designs almost pure were copied in a blue _Camaïen_ (monochrome), or in a harmonious mixture of blue and purple-black manganese, the latter colour being a mixture of the blue with manganese. In the eighteenth century the style of design was debased and very much degraded, and the pottery became coarse and heavy.

ROUEN WARE.—A much better class of pottery both in manufacture and design is the famous Rouen ware, made in the town of that name in Normandy. In the year 1644 Edme Poterat obtained a licence to make and sell fayence in the province of Normandy.

This monopoly did not last long, for we find that in 1673 his son, Louis Poterat, obtained another licence, and from that time a new development takes place in the ornament that is so characteristic of Rouen ware. The greater part of this ornament is composed of a scallop form of setting out, with alternating compositions of ornamental flowers, called _lambrequins_, and baskets of ornamental flowers that repeat at intervals around the border of plates or trays; light pendentives and wreaths of artificial flowers are painted in a lighter tone, and occur between the richer lambrequins (Fig. 54). Richly ornamented coats-of-arms, or baskets of flowers and cornucopias, occupy the centres (Fig. 55). The beautiful plate in the Kensington Museum (Fig. 56) is unique in Rouen ware in having _amorini_, or cupids, in the centre. All of the foregoing examples are painted in blue of different shades on the white enamel, or sometimes on yellow ochre grounds. Indian red colour and a warm reddish yellow is sometimes also used. The ornament is pseudo-Chinese, and is a Norman development of Oriental forms with some Italian influences which are reminiscences of the decoration brought by the Conrade brothers from Genoa to Nevers.

Some of the Rouen ware is decorated with a ray formation on which the ornament is painted on a light or dark ground. This is known as the _style rayonnant_. The drawing of these patterns is always very careful and correct, the latter often being copies of the printed decoration of the books of that period. Later on the decoration became of a freer type, with bouquets of artificial flowers, and in the eighteenth century the _Rocaille_ or Rococo element began to creep in, and the Rouen ware developed from the camaïen blue style of decoration to a polychrome style.

The Chinese element in design became everywhere in the ascendant, not only in late Rouen ware, but in the pottery of every country in Europe, and remains more or less in the work of to-day. Some of the late Rouen ware is not so bizarre in its decoration as many other French and European styles of the same period. Fig. 57 shows the Chinese influence, but is in better taste than the majority of contemporary designs.

As a style decays the colour as a rule becomes more gaudy, which applies to Rouen ware as to other varieties of fayence. The “Cornucopia pattern” belongs to the decadence period: this is full of unrestrained liberty both in form and colour. It ought to be mentioned that Louis Poterat, of Rouen, first discovered the secret of making the Chinese soft porcelain (_pâte tendre_) in France. Several pieces of this Rouen porcelain are preserved in the Museums at Sèvres and at Limoges.

The Rouen School of Decoration has influenced modern pottery designers in France, Germany, Holland, and England, more than any other school; but unfortunately they all copied its later defects with greater zeal than in taking lessons from its earlier excellencies.

Rouen ware was imitated in the Sinceny pottery, but this pottery was made by some workmen who had formerly belonged to Rouen, and established themselves at Sinceny in 1713, and copied the Rouen ware so closely that the copies have often been mistaken for the latter ware.

At Paris, St. Cloud, Quimper, and Lille, imitations of Rouen ware have been attempted with success. The St. Cloud pottery is of a slatey blue colour. The pottery of Lille is a close imitation of Rouen ware, as the plate (Fig. 58) clearly shows.

MOUSTIERS, in the south of France, was an important centre for enamelled pottery works, where a style of decoration was used that was a mixture of the Italian Urbino and the School of Rouen, the borders of the plates having the Rouen lambrequins, and the centres having figure subjects and landscapes, or, as in the later work, grotesques and ornament after the French artists, Callot and Berain.

The colour was in shades of a deep blue (Fig. 59).

Pierre Clérissy (1728) was the name of the first artist and also of his nephew, who continued the works after him in Moustiers.

Polychrome decoration became common at a later date, when some Moustiers workmen, who had been to the Alcora potteries in Spain, introduced the Spanish style of colouring, then in great fashion, which consisted of bright orange yellow, light green, and blue outlines. The later Moustiers ware is decorated with festoons and ovals with figures or busts painted in them.

MARSEILLES fayence is of a delicate and pure enamel, and is painted with flowers, shell fish, and insects, &c., which as a rule are thrown on or disposed in an irregular sort of way. Much of the decoration was Chinese or Rouen imitations, and little landscapes painted in red camaïen; gold was sometimes used in the stalks of the flowers.

STRASBURG pottery, though classed as French, owed a good deal of its process of manufacture and general character to German methods of manipulation and decorative processes, as German potters were mostly employed in the works.

The great difference was in the mode of decoration, the latter being applied on the fired surface of the enamel in the Strasburg wares; whereas in the wares of the other French potteries that have just been considered the decoration was applied to the unbaked and consequently absorbent ground. The latter was the more artistic method, and the former, or German method, allowed a wider range of the artist’s palette, and admitted of greater delicacy of execution, but was more harsh in effect, and did not incorporate the colours with the enamel in a way that an absorbent ground or unbaked enamel would do.

The name of Charles Hannong is connected with an early pottery of Strasburg, which was mostly a manufactory of earthenware stoves. This pottery was founded in 1709. In 1721 Hannong and a German porcelain worker, who was taken into partnership by the former, began to make porcelain, but after a short existence under the sons of Hannong this pottery was closed.

Statuettes, clocks, dinner and dessert services were made in Strasburg glazed earthenware, with modelled and painted decoration. The colouring and decoration was of the prevalent Rococo, bright and clear; flowers of all kinds, and Chinese pictures, were imitated mostly on white grounds (Fig. 60).

FRENCH PORCELAIN.

The desire to imitate the porcelain ware of China led to the discovery of the soft paste (_pâte tendre_). The names “_porcelaine de France_” and “_Sèvres porcelain_” have also been given to it. As previously mentioned, it was made at Rouen in 1690, at St. Cloud in 1698, and at Lille in 1711, but in all these cases in a small and tentative way.

The composition of the paste in the French soft porcelain is described by MM. Gasnault and Garnier in their handbook of “French Pottery” as follows: “The paste was composed of the sand of Fontainebleau, saltpetre, sea salt, soda (_soude d’Alicante_), alum, gypsum, or parings of alabaster; all these elements were mixed together and placed in an oven in a layer of considerable thickness, where, after being baked for at least fifty hours, they formed a perfectly white frit, or vitrefied paste. The frit was mixed with Argenteuil marl in the proportion of nine pounds of frit to three pounds of marl, &c.”

The glaze is described as consisting of “the sand of Fontainebleau, litharge, salts of soda, Bougival silex or gun-flint, and potash.” All these were ground and melted together, and afterwards the vitreous mass was re-ground in water and thus formed the glaze.

The soft paste is much superior for artistic works owing to the glaze incorporating with the colours in a perfect manner, rendering them equally brilliant with the enamel, but this is not the case with the hard or natural kaolin, as the glaze on this does not blend completely with the colours of the decoration. The soft paste porcelain is, however, too porous for articles of domestic use, and can be tested by its being easily scratched by a knife.

The Marquis Orry de Fulvey made an attempt to establish the soft paste porcelain works at Vincennes in 1741, but this was not a success. It was established again under new conditions in 1745, and after many experiments some important vases were made decorated with flowers in relief. The manufactory was reorganized again and removed to Sèvres, near Paris, in the year 1756. The products of the Sèvres works at this time were the fine vases with the _bleu de roi_, or _bleu de Sèvres_, and the lovely _rose Pompadour_ colours, and numerous fancy articles, as heads of canes, buttons, snuff-boxes, needle-cases, also table services, &c. Many artists were employed to paint the flower and figure decorations; the latter were painted after the designs of Boucher, Vanloo, and others.

The soft paste porcelain was made from about 1700 to 1770. Some of the finest soft paste Sèvres porcelain may be seen in the Jones Collection at South Kensington, of which there are nearly sixty examples. The vase (Fig. 61) has a dark blue ground. The clock of Sèvres porcelain (Fig. 62) is a beautiful and unique example that was made especially for Marie Antoinette. The clock is mounted in ormoulu by Gouthière, and is in his best style of work.

The egg-shaped vase (Fig. 63) has a blue ground and is decorated with subject of Cupid and Psyche.

The artists Falconet, Clodion, La Rue, and Bachelier modelled and designed many of the statuettes, plaques, and vases for the Sèvres manufactory.

Cabinets and tables of the Louis Seize period were often inlaid with painted plaques of Sèvres ware, and have ormoulu mountings. This kind of furniture is exceedingly refined in design and workmanship, and reflects in a high degree the Pompadour and Du Barry period of French taste.

In 1768 beds of kaolin clay were found in France at St. Yrieix, near Limoges. Maquer, a chemist attached to the Sèvres factory, in 1769 submitted for the king’s (Louis XVI.) inspection at the Château of Versailles sixty pieces of the new _hard porcelain_ made from this native clay.

During the time of the French Revolution the manufactory was in a critical state of existence, but was still kept in a working state. In the year 1800 Alexandre Brongniart was appointed director, a post he held for forty-seven years—and after his appointment the manufacture of soft porcelain ceased.

In his time the manufactory was in a state of great prosperity, and the science he brought to bear on the manufacturing processes was of immense importance. Vases over seven feet in height were produced, and the pieces which were made were ornamented with trophies and battle scenes that glorified the events in the reign of Napoleon I.

In the reign of Louis Philippe the artists Fragonard, Chenavard, Clerget, and Julienne introduced a new style of Renaissance decoration and design, but this was of a heavy and overloaded order that was not exactly suited to the character of porcelain.

About the middle of the present century Louis Robert, the chief painter at Sèvres, introduced the novelty of _coloured pastes_, which was to develop later into the _pâte-sur-pâte_ process, so successfully practised by the talented M. Solon, who has executed so much of this beautiful work for Minton’s in England. The process of Louis Robert consisted in the use of porcelain paste coloured with oxides. A _barbotine_ or _slip_ was made of this composition and paintings were executed with it in slight relief, the white paste being used chiefly on a coloured ground, the modelling or light and shade being regulated according to the thickness of the semi-transparent material employed. When finished this kind of work has a cameo-like effect.

GERMAN POTTERY.

German stoneware was manufactured at an early date, and in the countries bordering upon the Rhine the industry must have been in an active state in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, judging from the plentiful examples of the different varieties of the ware formerly known as “Grès Flamands” or “Grès de Flandres,” but now classified under their proper German origins. In the sixteenth century this ware was carried in great quantities from Raeren, from Frechen and Sieburg, near Cologne, and from Greuzhausen, near Coblentz, down the Rhine to Leyden and the Low Countries.

The brown stoneware of Raeren—which formerly belonged to the ancient Duchy of Limbourg—was especially in great request in Flanders. This brown ware was of a spherical or cylindrical shape, divided by a central broad band, with decorations of figure subjects, shields, masks, arms, &c.; the neck is also decorated with shields and bosses, and the foot with rings and guilloche ornament. Some good specimens of blue stoneware—called the “blue of Leipzig”—were also made at Raeren.

At Frechen, near Cologne, the celebrated “Greybeards” or “Bellarmines” were first made, that were imported and imitated so much in England during the reign of James I. (see Fig. 73). They were decorated with the head of an old man with a long beard, and sometimes also with armorial bearings or figure subjects.

The Sieburg stoneware was a cream-coloured ware, richly decorated in relief, and chiefly consisted of long narrow drinking tankards with metal covers, called “Pokals.”

At Greuzhausen and at Höhr were manufactured small jugs called “_cruches_,” also saltcellars, inkstands, and braziers were made in grey stoneware decorated in parts with the rich “blue of Leipzig” and with various relief ornaments.

In the end of the seventeenth century and beginning of the eighteenth at Creussen, in Bavaria, tankards or drinking mugs were made of a round shape with covers, and decorated with figures of the Apostles in relief, and coloured in bright crude colours that look like oil painting: they are known as “Apostel Kruges,” or Apostle mugs.

At Nuremberg, tiles, pipes, and stoves were manufactured in glazed brown or green stoneware, and at the same place a celebrated potter named Augustin Hirschvogel made different kinds of ware in tin-glazed enamel, who with his family preserved for a long time the secret in Germany of this particular glaze.

Delft, a town in Holland, was renowned in the seventeenth century for its extensive manufacture of the fayence known as “Delft.” The potteries of Delft were established in the early years of the century, and towards the end upwards of thirty potteries were in full working order. The genuine delft ware is of a fine hard paste, has a beautiful and clear smooth enamel, and is decorated with almost every kind of subject, chiefly in a blue camaïen.

Attempts at polychrome decoration are very rare, but a red colour has been often used. The style of design and shapes were generally imitations of Chinese, Japanese, and Dresden wares (Fig. 64). Almost every class and shape of the usual pottery objects were manufactured, and some plates and vases were of very great dimensions.

GERMAN PORCELAIN.

The Portuguese introduced China porcelain into Europe, and for a long time the potters sought to imitate it, but without much success, until the true kaolin was discovered by Böttger, about 1709. At Aue, Schneeberg, and in the year 1715, a pottery for the manufacture of hard porcelain was established at Meissen, by Augustus II., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, with Böttger as director.

This porcelain, after it had been brought to a considerable degree of perfection, turned out a great success in its similarity to the Chinese composition of body, but in spite of all precautions to keep the making and the nature of the clay secret, the knowledge leaked out, and in a short time after we find that hard porcelain was made in many parts of Germany and Austria.

Like most of the wares made at other potteries at this period, the Dresden porcelain was at first an imitation of Chinese in shape and decoration. Almost every kind of articles were made at Dresden, such as candelabra, statuettes, modelled flowers, vases, services, &c., on which were painted with great delicacy, flowers, landscapes, and figures on grounds of different rich colours (Figs. 66 and 67).

ENGLISH POTTERY.

Ancient British pottery has been found in the barrows and burial mounds in the form of incense cups, drinking and food vessels, and cinerary urns. These have all been made of clays that were found usually on the spot, and are either sun-dried or imperfectly burnt.

The drinking vessels were tall and cylindrical in form, and the incense cups were wider in the centre than at either end. The urns and food vessels have a similarity of shape, being globular, with or without a neck. The decoration is of the simplest description, such as chevrons, or zigzags, and straight-lined patterns produced by scratching with a stick, or the impressions of a rope tied around the vessel while the clay was soft.

The Romans made pottery in Britain from native clay, and also imported much of the Samian ware. The Roman wares of British manufacture are known as Castor, Upchurch, and New Forest wares; they are generally of very good shapes, and are decorated with slips, dots, bosses, and indentations, and are unglazed or slightly glazed (Fig. 68).

The Romano-British urn in the illustration has a slight yellow glaze. The pottery made by the Anglo-Saxons is of the same type and pattern as that made by the Saxons on the Continent. It is rough and inartistic in shape, except in some specimens that were made in the south of England, where an imitation of Roman and probably Norman pottery was attempted.

We do not meet much Saxon pottery in England of any importance until we come to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, when some of the best efforts in tile making and decoration are seen in the beautiful floor-tiles of the early Gothic period. Many examples of these tiles have been preserved in the British and other Museums, and some are still _in sitû_ in Westminster Abbey, Malvern, Ely, and Gloucester Cathedrals, and Chertsey Abbey. The designs are often heraldic in character (Fig. 69), and consist of geometrical, floral, animal, and architectural forms. Badges, shields, and texts are also found as decorations, and sometimes the human figure is also represented. The earliest are of one colour, or two, as a yellow or a dull red, and the later ones have several colours. They are generally called “encaustic” tiles.

Slip wares were made extensively at Wrotham in Kent as early as 1650, and at Staffordshire, Derby, and other places in England even earlier than this date. Many of them are of quaint and uncouth forms, and are generally covered with a rich green, brown, or yellow glaze, made from copper, manganese, or iron oxides. Curious two-handled, three or four-handled mugs or _tygs_ used for handing round drinks, posset cups or pots, plates, dishes, candlesticks, jugs, and piggins were made in these wares, and decorated with “slip,” which is a mixture of clay and water used in the thickness of cream, and which is dropped or trailed from a tube or spouted vessel, on the surface of the ware, forming the decoration according to the fancy of the designer. The colour of the slip varied from light to dark (Fig. 70).

The dish of Toft’s ware (Fig. 71) is a specimen of the slip decoration, date about 1660. Toft was a potter who had his kiln at Tinker’s Clough, near Newcastle in Staffordshire. His work is decorated with coloured slip on a common red clay, with a wash of white or pipe clay, upon which the decoration was laid in red slip; darker tints were used for the outlines, and sometimes white dots. The lead glaze used gave a yellow tint to the white clay coating.

Marbled and combed wares, &c., were made in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in which different coloured bodies were mixed in the paste to form a mottled, marbled, or variegated appearance.

Lambeth has been noted for its potteries from about 1660. Lambeth delft comprised such objects as wine jars, candlesticks, posset pots. The ware is of a pale buff tint; the paste is covered with a white tin-glaze or enamel, and a lead glaze over the decoration. Some plates have figure subjects and floriated borders, which seem to be imitations of Italian majolica (Fig. 72). The names of Griffith and Morgan appear as Lambeth potters in the eighteenth century; and the present “Stiff’s” pottery was founded in 1751. The most noted pottery now in London is the manufactory of Messrs. Doulton—"The Lambeth Pottery"—founded in 1811, whose original and beautiful work is so well known to everybody in the present day.

In Staffordshire pictorial delft ware was made in William III. and Queen Anne’s time, but was of a coarser kind and less pure in the enamel than Lambeth delft.

Stoneware of an extremely hard and translucent kind was made by John Dwight at Fulham, about 1670. He made grey stoneware jugs, flasks, statuettes, and busts. The busts and statuettes were of great excellence. The jugs and tankards were made in imitation of the German “Grès”—the so-called “Grès de Flandres.” These were called in England “Bellarmines,” “longbeards,” or “greybeards,” by way of mockery of the Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, who was unpopular with the Protestant party in the reign of James I. (Fig. 73).

Salt-glazed stoneware is still made at the present time at the Fulham works, which are now in possession of Mr. C. J. C. Bailey.

The salt-glazed white stoneware of Staffordshire was made from 1690 till after 1800. The introduction of the salt glaze ware in Staffordshire is ascribed to the celebrated potter John Philip Elers and his brother David. They are likely to have been Dutchmen who had also worked in the potteries of Nuremberg, and had brought with them the knowledge of the salt-glaze process to Staffordshire, together with the style and ornamentation of the Holland stonewares. Dwight of Fulham made salt-glazed wares before the time that the Elers settled at Bradwell in Staffordshire (1690-1710). John Elers made a revolution in the style of working the English pottery by turning his ware in the lathe instead of the exclusive use of the potter’s wheel. The Elers made a red unglazed stoneware chiefly for teapots, cups, saucers, milk jugs, chocolate pots, besides other salt-glazed wares.

The salt-glazed ware is one of the hardest wares known, and is almost a porcelain in composition. The glaze gives a slightly uneven surface to the ware, which comes from the manner in which the wares receive the glaze. The pieces are not dipped in a glaze mixture, but when the kiln has reached a very high temperature common salt is thrown into the kiln; the soda is liberated from the salt by the action of the heat, and coming in contact with the silica of the stoneware clay, forms with it a silicate of soda, which is really a glass glaze. The composition of the ware is, generally speaking, clay and fine sand. Astbury, the potter, in 1720 used what is considered the best composition—grey clay and ground flint instead of sand. The colour is drab, or sometimes has a dull cream-coloured covering.

The colour of the old Staffordshire ware is drab, with small white applied ornaments that were previously cast from moulds of brass or stoneware. Coloured enamels have also been very much used for decorating later work. The ornaments are single roses, may blossoms, _fleur-de-lis_, spirals, small interlacings, birds, figures, straight or wavy lines, &c., all generally very sharp and clear cut (Figs. 74, 75).

The potter John Astbury worked for the Elers, and after finding out as many secrets as he could from them, he left them and started a pottery of his own in Staffordshire. He used a wider range of clays and colours than those used by the Elers, and had more variety also in the decoration of his ware, which consisted of such ornaments as harps, crowns, stags, lions, and heraldic designs.

Brown stoneware was made at Nottingham during the whole of the eighteenth century, and was of a bright rich colour; the material was thin and well fabricated. Besides the ordinary shaped jugs, puzzle-jugs and mugs in the shape of bears with movable heads were made, that were used in the beerhouses of the last century.

Bristol and Liverpool were famous for their delft-ware during the last century. Richard, Frank, and Joseph Flower are names of potters who had delft works in Bristol.

In Liverpool bowls with pictures of ships, arms, and landscape decoration were made of delft. Tiles on which were printed transfer decorations were also made of Liverpool delft by Sadler and Green, the inventors. These tiles were about five inches square, were printed in black or red, and were used for lining stoves and fireplaces. Theatrical characters and portraits of celebrities were the usual subjects. Wedgwood and other Staffordshire potteries sent their wares to Liverpool to get transfers printed on them.

Wedgwood ware is one of the most technically perfect productions that has been invented. The colouring is quiet and refined, and the decorations—following the classic ideals of the period—are severe and rather cold, but the workmanship is of such a perfection and delicacy that is seldom found in the ceramic products of any other manufactory.

Josiah Wedgwood came of a family of potters. He was born in 1730, and died in 1795. He was the youngest son of Thomas Wedgwood, a potter of Burslem, who died in 1739, and after his death Josiah left school and was bound apprentice to his brother Thomas, who succeeded his father in the pottery. Josiah concentrated his energies to the designing and modelling of pottery ornaments and to the invention of new paste compositions and glazes. Later on he sought to imitate in appearance and composition the precious stones of agate, onyx, jasper, &c.

After his apprenticeship was over he joined partnership with Harrison, of Stoke, and afterwards with Wheildon, of Fenton, but these associations did not last long, and in 1759 he started business in a small way at Burslem, where he executed many works, and by degrees perfected the cream-coloured ware which is known by the name of “Queen’s ware.” In the year 1776 he took into partnership Mr. Thomas Bentley, a Liverpool merchant of artistic tastes, who attended chiefly to the production of the decorative wares of the firm. This partnership lasted until the death of Bentley in 1780. It was in 1769 that Wedgwood removed his works and went also to live at his new house at Etruria, where he founded and named this village. He took his sons John, Josiah, and Thomas into partnership, and also his nephew Thomas Byerley in 1790. Five years after this date he died.

The products of the Wedgwood manufacture—which may be found more fully described in Professor Church’s excellent book on “English Earthenware,” to which we are indebted for many particulars on English pottery and for some of the illustrations—are thus classified:—

"1. _Cream-coloured ware_, or ‘Queen’s ware,’ comprises dinner and dessert services, tea and coffee sets. Cream-coloured, saffron, and straw-coloured, with well-painted designs of conventional foliage and flowers, and later work with transfer engraving in red or black, printed by Sadler and Green, of Liverpool.

"2. _Egyptian black_, or basalt ware, owing its colour chiefly to iron. Seals, plaques, life-size busts, medallion portraits, and vases. Black tea and coffee sets decorated with coloured enamels and gilding (Fig. 76).

"3. _Red ware_, or _Rosso Antico_, used for cameo reliefs.

"4. White semi-porcelain or fine stoneware. This ware was composed of one of Wedgwood’s improved bodies.

"5. _Variegated ware_ is of two kinds, one a cream-coloured body, marbled, mottled, or spangled with divers colours upon the surface and under the glaze; the other an improved kind of agate ware, in which the bands, twists, and strips constituted the entire substance of the vessel.

“6. _Jasper ware._ The body of this ware was the material in which the chief triumphs of Wedgwood were wrought. Outwardly it resembled the finest of his white terra-cotta and semi-porcelain bodies, but in chemical and physical properties it differed notably from them. There are seven colours in the Jasper body besides the white Jasper, but the solid Jasper is of a blue tint. The seven colours are:— blue of various tints, lilac, pink, sage-green, olive-green, yellow, and black.”

Plaques, tablets, large portraits, and other medallions, cameos, intaglios, vases, statuettes, pedestals, flower-pots, &c., are objects and vessels that were made in Jasper ware.

Flaxman collaborated with Wedgwood in making many designs for his work. The beautiful pedestal shown at Fig. 77 is from a design by Flaxman, and is made in green and white Jasper.

Other names of artists who designed or modelled for Wedgwood are Hackwood, Stubbs, Bacon, Webber, Devere, Angelini, Dalmazzoni, &c. An influence on some of his work was due to his studying and copying the celebrated Portland Vase, which was lent to him for this purpose for more than three years by the Duke of Portland.

ENGLISH PORCELAIN.

Porcelain was first made in England about the year 1745. The best period of the manufacture dates from 1750 to 1780, though some of the oldest factories have survived to the present day. English porcelain, or as it is better known as “China” ware, was made at Chelsea, Bow, Derby, Worcester, Plymouth, Bristol, and in Staffordshire. Some of the best porcelain from these places does not yield in beauty to the finest of Sèvres ware.

The Chelsea porcelain works were first under a Mr. Charles Gouyn, and it appears that Nicolas Sprimont was his successor, who was originally a goldsmith in Soho, and who was probably of Flemish origin.

Chelsea ware is remarkable for its deep rich claret-coloured grounds. This colour was first used on the Chelsea porcelain in 1759. Turquoise-blue, pea-green, and Mazarine-blue were also, though in a lesser degree, peculiar to Chelsea ware. The early pieces are without gilding, which is more of a distinguishing mark of the later productions. The paste, the enamel, the colour, and technique are all perfect in their way, but the art and design of the objects do not by any means equal the workmanship; this was of course due to the false taste of the period, when the rococo element in design was fashionable everywhere (Fig. 78). Vases, statuettes, scent bottles, compotiers, bowls, cups, saucers, animals, birds, fruit, and flowers were made by Sprimont in an extravagant style of design.

In 1769 William Duesbury, of the Derby porcelain works, purchased the Chelsea manufactory, and six years later he acquired the Bow porcelain works. A less extravagant style of design and decoration characterized the Chelsea-Derby productions, a specimen of which is seen in the cooper’s bowl, Fig. 79.

The Bow China factory was owned by two partners, Weatherby and Crowther, in 1750; the former died in 1762, and the latter failed in the business in 1763. Duesbury, of Derby, bought up the Bow works in 1776, when he removed the moulds and models. Chelsea and Bow ware are very similar in design and appearance, and consequently a difficulty exists in classifying doubtful pieces. There are a great many examples of Bow porcelain in the Schreiber gift in the South Kensington Museum, and Professor Church is of the opinion that they are mostly authentic specimens. The Chinese-shaped vase with the rococo and Louis-Seize decorations is a typical example of the Bow porcelain (Fig. 80).

The date of founding of the Derby porcelain works is not exactly known, except that certain pieces of Derby ware have been advertised for auction “after the finest Dresden models” in 1756 and up to 1770, proving that the works must have been going on during these periods. According to Professor Church, William Duesbury, the first of that name, was connected with the Derby works in 1756, and died in 1786. He was succeeded by his son of the same name, who took into partnership Michael Kean in 1795. This W. Duesbury died in 1796. The works were carried on by another William Duesbury until the year 1815, when they passed into the hands of Robert Bloor, who carried the manufactory on until 1848, when it ceased. Locher, a manager of Bloor’s, started another factory after this which still exists to-day. The Derby coloured porcelain statuettes are imitated more or less from Dresden ware, even to the Dresden marks of the crossed swords (Fig. 81), which marks are copied by a great many porcelain manufacturers. The cup and saucer (Fig. 82) is a specimen of early Crown Derby. The borders are deep blue and the festoons pink. Some of the names of the painters who were engaged at the Crown Derby works are:—F. Duvivier (1769), P. Stephan (1770), R. Askew (1772), J. J. Spengler (1790), and W. J. Coffee (1791). Askew was a clever figure painter. Deep blues, reds, and greens, with lavish gilding, and ornament of a very conventional character, are found on some of the late Derby cups, saucers, and plates.

WORCESTER porcelain was first made by a company consisting of fifteen shareholders, formed in the year 1751 by Dr. Wall and Mr. W. Davis, the inventors. The name given to the early ware was the “Tonquin porcelain of Worcester.” These works have been going almost without interruption under different names of proprietors until the present day.

Vases and other objects in Worcester porcelain of the early period were decided imitations of Chinese and Japanese wares, but at the same time they were dignified examples both as to form and decoration compared with the meaningless rococo designs of Chelsea and Bow.

The vase (Fig. 83), in the Schreiber Collection, is Oriental in form and decoration, but has a restrained character of its own that is not usually met with in the contemporary wares of the period.

The vases are the chief glory of Worcester ware; in colour they are exceedingly rich, having grounds of “gros bleu,” turquoise, pea-green, maroon, and a fine shade of yellow; gold is also used in modified proportions.

We have mentioned before the mode of decoration by transfer printing adopted by Janssen on the Battersea enamels and by Sadler and Green on the Liverpool delft; this style of decoration was extensively employed by the Worcester decorators for the fillings of the panels with landscapes and rustic figures, after engravings by Watteau, Gainsborough, and others.

Dresden and Sèvres wares were imitated at Worcester, and it is generally thought that when this was done—during the period 1768-1783—the Worcester ware was at its best. This was the middle period, and towards the time that ended about the beginning of this century the designs became laboured, and lavish use of gold rendered the work vulgar and showy.

Josiah and Richard Holdship and R. Handcock are names of some of the principal artists of the early and middle period. Donaldson, Neale, and Foggo were names of enamellers who worked at the Worcester pottery. A curious design in this ware of a tobacco-pipe bowl (Fig. 84) is in the Schreiber Collection.

PLYMOUTH porcelain manufactory was established by William Cookworthy (1705-80), who was the first to discover in England the real China clay or kaolin, about the year 1755. Cookworthy had a good knowledge of chemistry, and was a wholesale chemist and druggist. He found both the China clay and China stone at Tregonning Hill and at two other places in Cornwall. A patent was granted to him in 1768 for the manufacture of porcelain, and the firm of “Cookworthy and Co.” established itself at Coxside, Plymouth. A French ceramic artist named Sequoi was engaged to superintend the works. The Plymouth works were not of long duration, for shortly afterwards they were removed to Bristol, and Richard Champion, of Bristol, obtained a licence from Cookworthy to make the Plymouth porcelain, and bought the entire rights from the latter in 1773. From this date until 1781 Champion owned the Castle Green works at Bristol which formerly belonged to Cookworthy. Statuettes, vases, rustic pieces, teapots, cups and saucers, &c., were made in both Plymouth and Bristol china, many of them being imitations of Sèvres and Oriental wares.

In Staffordshire many porcelain works are still in existence that began in the last century or early in this, such as Longton Hall, New Hall, Spode, Wedgwood, and Minton, but space prevents us from giving any details of their work. Liverpool, Lowestoft, Coalport, Swansea, Nantgarw, and Rockingham may be mentioned as other places where English porcelain was made.

CHINESE PORCELAIN.

The manufacture of porcelain in China, according to their own accounts, dates for more than two hundred years before the Christian era. The composition of Chinese porcelain is of two elements: one, the infusible argillaceous earth or clay called kaolin; and the other the “pe-tun-tse,” which is feldspar slightly altered, a micaceous mineral and quartz or silica, which is fusible. The latter is used with or without other mixtures to form a glaze for hard porcelain. Other materials are sometimes used in the glaze, but, unlike the enamel of earthenware, tin or lead is not used.

The Chinese made their porcelain in different degrees of translucency. The kind made especially for the Emperor’s use, such as cups, saucers, and rice plates of a ruby-red tint, are very thin and almost transparent.

The porcelain coloured in turquoise blue, violet, sea-green, and celadon are of the oldest varieties made. Yellow, the colour of Ming dynasty, is a common colour in Chinese porcelain.

The Chinese decorated their vases sometimes without much regard to the spacing or divisions of body, neck, or foot (Fig. 85). Landscapes, dragons, fanciful kylins, dogs, and lions, as well as nearly all kinds of natural objects were used by them as decoration. Conventional renderings of flowers and foliage and geometric ornament are often used in a judicious sense.

Fig. 86.—Oriental Porcelain; Chinese, with French Ormolu Mounting.
(S.K.M.)
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Peculiar shapes of vases, such as the square, hexagonal, and octagonal forms, are found very frequent in Oriental ware. The vase (Fig. 86), from the Jones Collection, is a less extravagant example of Chinese porcelain than usual; the egg-shaped body is, however, the only Oriental part of the vase.

JAPANESE ware is more interesting and more varied in design, though not so gaudy in appearance as the Chinese, owing to the higher sense of artistic feeling and individuality of the Japanese artists. The art, as seen in the ceramic productions as well as in most other things of Japanese art and design, was originally borrowed from the older nation of China and from the Coreans. From their keen sense of beauty, and also greater artistic power, the art products of the Japanese are superior to those of China.

The first glazed pottery made in Japan is supposed to date from the year 1230—this was made at Seto by Tôshiro, who had learnt the art in China, and the first porcelain just before the year 1513, for the maker of this early Japanese porcelain—Shonsui, a Chinese potter—had returned to China in that year.

Pottery of an inferior kind was made anterior to the Christian era, but probably the oldest known was made by the people who occupied the country before the present Japanese. The ancient vase (Fig. 87) is an example of this early ware. It is of a coarse kind of earthenware, baked or fired in a hole in the ground, over which and around the vessel was built a wood fire.

Japanese wares are of three kinds: the common stoneware ornamented with scratched lines and glazed; a crackled glazed ware with painted decorations; and the porcelain. The porcelain of Japan is first baked to the biscuit state, then the colours of the decoration are applied, and the piece is afterwards glazed, and is again fired at a greater heat. The gilding or enamel colours that may be required are put on afterwards, when a third firing at a lower temperature is necessary. The Japanese porcelain paste does not stand the firing so well as the Chinese, and consequently the pieces are often twisted and altered in shape.

The factories of Hizen are among the very oldest and are still in working order in Japan. Old Hizen ware is decorated with blue paintings.

The pottery and porcelain of Seto manufacture is highly esteemed, and the name of _Setomono_ has been given by the Japanese to their porcelain ware.

The Kutani ware is a coarse porcelain, known also under the name of Kaga ware; the pieces with a red ground and gold ornamentation are highly valued. It is also glazed with deep green, light purple, and yellow colours.

One of the most famous and costliest Japanese wares is the old Satsuma, which was first made by the Corean potters who settled in the village of Nawashirogawa, in the province of Satsuma, about 1600. This ware is of a dark cream colour, with a crackled glaze, and is decorated with red, green, and gold outlined ornament (Fig. 88)

A specimen of the Hizen potteries porcelain, Arita ware, is illustrated at Fig. 89, of an incense-burner. It is painted in bright colours of red, green, pale blue, and has some gilding. It is decorated with hares or rabbits and waves in the panels and dragons on the cover.

INDIAN POTTERY.

The making of pottery is universal throughout India. The unglazed wares are made everywhere, and of various colours. Red glazed pottery is made at Dinapur, gilt pottery at Amroha and in Rajputana; black and silver pottery at Azimghar in the north-west, and at Surujgarrah in Bengal; painted pottery at Kota, the unglazed pierced variety at Madura, and the celebrated glazed pottery made at Sindh and in the Punjaub.

It may be said that in general the pottery of India is good in shape, colour, and decoration, the latter never violating its purpose, nor distracting the eye from the shape of the vessel. The designs are very simple, and repeating, perhaps to monotony in many cases; but the painted pottery decoration, by reason of its broad and direct application, although the ornament is very simple in character, is better, and less monotonous, for instance, than the Indian wood-carving decoration. The designs take the form of panels of flower and leaf ornament placed side by side, bands of guilloches, chevrons, running ornament, and lines, the knop-and-flower pattern, and a panel filling or an all-over decoration consisting of diapered flowers, leaves, or stars. The elegant shaped water bottle from Madura (Fig. 90) is pierced so that the air may circulate round the inner porous bowl. This ware is coloured a dark green or a golden brown glaze.

The Sindh glazed pottery is beautiful, though very simple in colour and decoration. The colours are mostly blue of two or three shades, turquoise greens, and creamy whites, and sometimes the glaze is purple, golden brown, or yellow. Many of the vases are bulbous or oviform in shape, with wide necks and bottoms, and are decorated with the _Sventi_, or daisy-like flower (Fig. 91), or the lotus (Fig. 92).

The enamelled tile from Sindh (Fig. 93) has a knop-and-flower decoration, the larger flower having the character of an iris, and, at the same time, something of the lotus flower in its composition.