Explanation of the Marks on the Following Plates (A. to E.)
Chinese Marks
1. Ta Ming Yung-lo, 1402-1424. Mark of Yung-lo, engraved under the glaze in early seal or ‘tadpole’ characters.
2. Ta Ming Hsuan-te nien chi, 1425-1435.
3. Cheng-hua nien chi, 1464-1487.
4. Ta Ming Cheng-te nien chi, 1505-1521.
5. Ta Ming Kia-Tsing nien chi, 1521-1566.
6. Ta Ming Lung-king nien chi, 1566-1572.
7. Ta Ming Wan-li nien chi, 1572-1619.
8. Ta Tsing Kang-he nien chi, 1661-1722.
9. Ta Tsing Yung-cheng nien chi, 1722-1735.
10. Do. do., in seal characters.
11. Ta Tsing Kien-lung nien chi, 1735-1795. Seal characters.
12. Ta Tsing Kia-king nien chi, 1795-1820. Seal characters.
13. Ta Tsing Tao-kwang nien chi, 1820-1850. Seal characters.
14. Ta Tsing Tung-chi nien chi, 1861-1874. Seal characters.
15. Wan chang shan tu. ‘Scholarship lofty as the Hills and the Great Bear.’
16. Ki yuh pao ting chi chin. ‘A gem among precious vessels of rare jade.’
17. Shun-ti tang chi. ‘Made at the Shun-ti (cultivation of virtue) Hall.’
18. Tsae chuan chi lo. ‘Enjoying themselves in the waters.’
19. Conventionalised seal character for Sho—longevity.
19A. Fu, a bat, a synonym of fu—happiness.
Japanese Marks
20. Kai-raku yen sei. ‘Made at the Kai-raku house.’
21. Ken-zan. The maker’s name.
22. Yei-raku. The seal granted to Zengoro. Seal character.
23. Fuku. Happiness. (Chinese, Fu.) Seal character.
24. Hopin chi liu. (Japanese, Ka hin shi riu). See p. 199 note.
German Marks
25. Meissen. The rod of Æsculapius.
26. Meissen. Monogram of Augustus ii., King of Poland.
27. Meissen. Crossed swords and letter (for painter or director).
28. Vienna. The shield of Austria.
29. Höchst. The wheel of the Mainz archbishops, surmounted by a cross.
30. Fürstenberg. The initial letter of the town.
31. Berlin. The sceptre carried by the Brandenburg elector as grand chamberlain of the empire.
32. Frankenthal. Crowned lion of the palatinate; the monogram J. A. H., probably for Joseph Adam Hannong.
33. Frankenthal. The monogram of Karl Theodor, surmounted by a crown.
34. Nymphenburg. Quarter of shield with arms of Bavaria.
35. Ludwigsburg. Arms of Würtemberg. Three stag horns.
36. Ludwigsburg. Monogram of Duke Charles, surmounted by ducal crown.
37. Fulda. Double F, for ‘Fürstliche Fuldaische.’
38. Fulda. Cross from the arms of the prince bishop.
39. Herend. Below—the arms of Hungary.
Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and Russian Marks
40. Weesp. Crossed swords and three dots. Similar mark used elsewhere.
41. Oude Loosdrecht. The ‘M:’ stands for manufactuur.’
42. The Hague. The arms of the town.
43. Copenhagen. The wavy lines represent the ‘three Belts.’
44. Sweden; Marieberg. The three crowns from the arms of Sweden.
45. Moscow. St. George surrounded by band, with inscription. Above, the Russian eagle.
46. St. Petersburg. Monogram of Catherine ii. (Ekaterina).
Belgian and Swiss Marks
47. Tournay. A tower, the arms of the town.
48. Tournay. Crossed swords and four crosses.
49. Zurich. German Z and two dots.
50. Nyon. A fish.
French Marks
51. Saint-Cloud. The sun, emblem of Louis xiv.
52. Saint-Cloud. Initials of town and of director of factory—Trou.
53. Chantilly. A hunter’s horn.
54. Mennecy. D. V., for the Duc de Villeroy.
55. Vincennes. The initials of Louis xv. crossed, without year-mark.
56. Vincennes. Initials of Louis xv.; year-mark for 1753, and decorator’s mark (H.).
57. Sèvres. Time of First Empire. The 7 stands for 1807.
58. Sèvres. Double C, enclosing X, for Charles x. 24 for 1824.
59. Paris; Courtille. Two crossed arrows.
60. Orleans (?). Label with three points from ducal arms.
61. Paris; Clignancourt. The windmill of Montmartre.
62. Paris; Rue Thiroux. A, for Marie Antoinette, under a crown.
Italian and Spanish Marks
63. Venice. Incised. Probably of Vezzi family.
64. Venice. Anchor of Cozzi factory.
65. Le Nove. Star of eight points.
66. Vinovo. Cross of Savoy above letter V, for the town.
67. Madrid, Buen Retiro. The fleur-de-lis from the royal arms.
English Marks
68. Chelsea. Triangle, incised.
69. Chelsea. Anchor, in relief.
70. Chelsea. Anchor.
71. Bow. Anchor and dagger.
72. Bow. Monogram of Thomas Frye. (?) Perhaps sometimes a Worcester mark.
73. Chelsea-Derby. Anchor and letter D.
74. Derby. Jewelled crown, crossed batons, with dots and letter D.
75. Derby. Jewelled crown and letter D.
76. Worcester. Imitation of Chinese characters.
77. Worcester. Crescent.
78. Worcester. Imitation Chinese seal character.
79. Worcester. Crossed swords and number.
80. Swansea. Trident.
81. Longton Hall. Crossed L’s and dots.
82. Plymouth. The symbol for tin.
83. Bristol. Symbol for tin, with a cross.
84. Bristol. Crossed swords, erased.
Footnotes
1 Some English porcelain is stated by Professor Church to have a hardness equal to that of quartz. See below, ‘Bristol Porcelain.’
2 We have thought it well, once for all, to treat briefly of the scientific aspect of our subject, but those who are not interested in this point of view may pass over the next few pages.
[3] I shall return to this point in a later chapter. I lay the more stress on this fact, as it is often stated that the hard and slightly translucent stonewares, such as the Fulham ware of Dwight, which contains as much as eighty per cent. of silica, form one degree of a series of which true porcelain is the next term. The fact is, those who sought to make porcelain by a refinement in the manufacture of stoneware were as much astray as those who started from a fusible glass frit.
4 The china-stone of Cornwall might, in part at least, be claimed as an old volcanic rock, and that used in the Imari district of Japan is distinctly of volcanic origin. Both these rocks, however, consist essentially of a mixture of quartz and felspar.
5 For further details consult the authorities quoted in the Handbook of the Jermyn Street Collection, p. 5; for sections showing the relation of the beds of kaolin to the surrounding rock, see Brongniart’s Traité des Arts Céramiques, vol. i.
6 It is to the scattered notices and essays of Mr. William Burton that we must go for information in this country. In his new work on English Porcelain he does not treat upon this side of the subject.
7 The most complete work on the processes of manufacture is now Dubreuil’s La Porcelaine, Paris, 1885. It forms part forty-two in Fremy’s Encyclopédie Chimique. This volume brings up to date and replaces in some measure the great work of Alexandre Brongniart, the Traité des Arts Céramiques (two volumes, with a quarto volume of plates), Paris, 1844. M. Georges Vogt in La Porcelaine, Paris, 1893, gives valuable details of the processes employed at Sèvres.
8 The cailloux of the French. This material is often described as felspar, but I think that quartz can seldom be completely absent.
9 I should, however, be inclined to class not only much of the porcelain of Japan, but some of that made in Germany and in south-west France, rather in the ‘severe’ kaolinic than in the intermediary class of M. Vogt.
10 We can, however, distinguish, in the tomb paintings of the Middle Empire, an earlier form without the lower table. This earlier type, moved by hand from the upper table, was that used by the Greeks at least as late as the sixth century B.C., and a similar primitive wheel is still used in India. On later Egyptian monuments of Ptolemaic time, the potter is seen moving the wheel by pressing his foot on a second lower table, as now at Sèvres and elsewhere. Both forms of wheel appear to have been used by the Italian potters of the Renaissance.
11 This seam is often visible on vases of old Chinese porcelain, and may be taken as a sign that the object has been moulded.
12 Porcelain in China followed, as we shall see, in the wake of the more early developed arts of the bronze-caster and the jade-carver. Hence the prevalence in the early wares of shapes unsuitable to the wheel.
13 I think that this is a more practical division than the one made by M. Vogt and adopted by Dr. Bushell.
14 An important exception is to be noted in the case of the firing of large vases in China.
15 A good instance of the first case is the finding of crow-claws in the rubbish-heaps of Fostât or Old Cairo. As to the method of support indicating the place of origin, see what is said below about the celadon ware of Siam.
16 There is only one exception of any importance—the porcelain of Chantilly, much of which has an opaque stanniferous glaze.
17 So we can infer from the magnificent wall decoration of the Achæmenian period brought home from Susa by M. Dieulafoi.
18 A glaze of this nature was in the Saracenic East applied to a layer of fine white slip, which itself formed a coating on the coarse paste. Such a combination, often very difficult to distinguish from a tin enamel, we find on the wall-tiles of Persia and Damascus.
19 Metallic gold has, of course, been applied to the decoration of porcelain in all countries.
20 The colour of the ruby glass in our thirteenth century windows has a very similar origin. In this case the art was lost and only in a measure recovered at a later period. As in the case of the Chinese glaze, the point was to seize the moment when the copper was first reduced and, in a minute state of division, was suspended in floccular masses in the glass.
21 With these colours a dark blue is sometimes associated. Is this derived like the turquoise from copper? It is a curious fact that we have here exactly the same range of colours that we find in the little glass bottles of Phœnician or Egyptian origin, with zig-zag patterns (1500-400 B.C.).
22 See Vogt, La Porcelaine, p. 219. The problem is really more complicated. For simplicity’s sake we have ignored the changes that take place in the glaze that lies between the enamels and the paste.
23 The same result may be obtained by painting one colour over the other, as we find in the black ground of the famille verte.
24 In Persia, where for three centuries at least the Chinese wares have been known and imitated, the word chini has almost the same connotation. See below for a discussion of the route by which this word reached England.
25 During the eighteenth century, however, the French missionaries remained in friendly relation with the Chinese court, especially with the Emperor Kien-lung, a man of culture and a poet. The Père Amiot sent home not only letters with valuable information, but from time to time presents of porcelain from the emperor. He was in correspondence with the minister Bertin, who was himself a keen collector of porcelain. See the notes in the Catalogue of Bertin’s sale, Paris, 1815.
26 Thanks to the industry of the present curator, Herr Zimmermann, the same may now be said of the great collection at Dresden.
27 For a discussion, and for many illustrations of the art of these early dynasties which survives chiefly in objects of jade or bronze, see Paléologue, Art Chinois, Paris, 1887.
28 The wild statements as to the transparency, above all, of the Sung and even the Tang porcelain may, however, appear to receive some confirmation from the reports of the old Arab travellers. But how much credence we can give to these authorities may be gleaned from a description of the fayence of Egypt, by a Persian traveller of the eleventh century. ‘This ware of Misr,’ he says, ‘is so fine and diaphanous that the hand may be seen through it when it is applied to the side of the vessel.’ He is speaking not of porcelain, but of a silicious glazed earthenware!
29 Pekin Oriental Society, 1886; see also Bushell’s Ceramic Art, p. 132 seq.
30 See the passage in his History (chapter ix.) where this stern censor, referring to the passion for collecting china, rebukes the ‘frivolous and inelegant fashion’ for ‘these grotesque baubles.’
31 The name Céladon first occurs in the Astrée, the once famous novel of Honoré D’Urfé. When later in the seventeenth century Céladon, the courtier-shepherd, was introduced on the stage, he appeared in a costume of greyish green, which became the fashionable colour of the time, and his name was transferred to the Chinese porcelain with a glaze of very similar colour, which was first introduced into France about that period.
32 Julien translated the word ching as blue, an unfortunate rendering in this case, which has been the cause of much confusion. He was so far justified in this, in that the same word is used by the Chinese for the cobalt blue of our ‘blue and white,’ while it was not applied by them to a pronounced green tint.
33 I shall return to this point when treating of English porcelain.
34 Somewhat later the Chinese were for a time neighbours of the Sassanian empire, where the arts of glazing pottery and making glass were highly developed. Sassanian bronzes, and probably textiles, have found their way to Japan.
35 The salt-glazed ware of Europe seems to be the only important exception to this perhaps rather sweeping generalisation.
36 It is possible, however, that some of the various tints of brown used from early Ming times, especially that known to the Chinese as ‘old gold,’ may have been suggested by this copper lustre. The ground on which this lustre is superimposed in some old Persian wares is of a very similar shade. Dr. Bushell mentions a tradition that the old potters tried to produce a yellow colour by adding metallic gold to their glaze, but that the gold all disappeared in the heat of the grand feu. They had therefore to fall back upon the or bruni.
37 Consult for this ware the beautifully illustrated monographs of Mr. Henry Wallis on early Persian ceramics.
38 The cobalt pigment itself, when not of native origin, was known to the Chinese in Ming times as Hui-hui ch’ing or ‘Mohammedan blue.’ The other names for the material, sunipo and sumali, probably point in the same direction.
39 A little white oval vase, in the Treasury of St. Mark’s, at Venice, may possibly be of this old Ting ware. The decoration is in low relief, and four little rings for suspension surround the mouth. In any case this is the only piece in this famous collection that has any claim to be classed as porcelain.
40 The style of this cloisonné decoration is almost identical with that seen in the two magnificent lacquer screens with landscapes and Buddhist emblems at South Kensington. The chains of pearls and pendeloques are characteristic of a style of painting often found on the beams and ceilings of the old Buddhist temples of Japan. This is, I think, a motif not found elsewhere on Chinese porcelain.
41 The late M. Du Sartel gives in his work on Chinese porcelain good photographs of some jars of this class in his collection. He was one of the first to call attention to this ware.
42 This dull surface is especially noticeable in some of the specimens with Arabic inscriptions in the British Museum; these date from the Cheng-te period (1505-21).
43 In Persia, too, and in that country accompanied by many other varieties of Chinese porcelain. For examples of these wares see above all the collection at South Kensington.
44 Relations des Musulmans avec les Chinois. It is not impossible, however, that further research may bring to light some information on this subject. Since writing this I hear from Dr. Bushell that some specimens of Saracenic enamelled glass, presumably of the fourteenth century, have lately been purchased in Pekin. The Arab trade with China was probably never more active than in the first half of the fifteenth century. It is with the Memlook Sultans, then ruling a wide empire from Cairo, that we must associate most of this enamelled glass, and the Eastern trade was in their hands.
45 See Bushell, p. 454.
46 Note that cobalt as an enamel colour was not applied on porcelain during Ming times.
47 There is, however, a curious old bowl in the Salting collection with the nien-hao of Cheng-te (1505-21), on which a design of iron red, two shades of green, a brownish purple, and a cobalt blue of poor lavender tint, all these colours over the glaze, is combined with an underglaze decoration of fish, in a full copper red. Note also the early use of a cobalt blue enamel, sur couverte, in the Kakiyemon ware of Japan.
48 Much of this kind was translated by Julien, and a good summary may be found in Hippisley’s paper contributed to the Smithsonian Institute, but the information from the same and other sources is more accurately translated and critically analysed in the seventh and eighth chapters of Dr. Bushell’s great work.
49 Yung-lo, according to the Chinese reckoning, did not commence his reign until the new year’s day following the death of his predecessor (1403). I have, however, thought it better to adopt the European method of reckoning dates.
50 The name Sentoku that they give to it is the Japanese reading of the characters forming this emperor’s name.
51 We may mention that a pair of wide-mouthed vases of this ware, shown at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1896, bore the nien-hao of Kia-tsing (1521-66) inscribed round the mouth.
52 More properly a fresh name was given to the period, but for the sake of brevity we here as elsewhere identify the emperor’s name with that given to the nien-hao.
53 The Trenchard bowls, mentioned below, belong probably to this or to the following reign.
54 But this name is also applied by some to the older Su-ma-li blue.
55 Perhaps the earliest nien-hao on a piece of blue and white in which we can place any confidence.
56 A predecessor of his as viceroy and superintendent at King-te-chen was Lang Ting-tso, from whom the famous Lang yao, the sang de bœuf, had its name, though this derivation is not absolutely certain. It could only have been quite in the last days of the latter viceroy’s rule that much good work was turned out from the kilns.
57 It will be observed that the turquoise blue and the green, both derived from copper, so happily combined in the wall-tiles of the Saracenic East, are in China rarely found united in the decoration of the same piece, and this arises from practical difficulties connected with the fluxes and the firing. At least the two colours are never successfully combined, for the attempt was apparently made in Ming times, and of this some instances are given in the following note. Indeed I should be inclined to regard such a combination on any piece as an evidence of early, probably of Ming, origin.
58 I would especially point to a remarkable water-vessel, about ten inches high, in the collection at Dresden. This vase is in the form of a phœnix. Green, as well as turquoise, purple and yellow are all found in the decoration, and the colours are all well developed. There is in the British Museum—a collection in many ways remarkable for the number of exceptional types illustrated—a jar with cover, of this class. The ground is a dull purple covered with small spirals of black; the rest of the decoration—rocks, waves, flowers, and jewels—is mainly green of two shades with a little yellow. On some of the flowers, however, we see a poor attempt at turquoise blue. Next to this example stands a baluster-shaped vase with tall, straight neck (Pl. vii. 2.). The ground is here of a pale greyish yellow, with crackles of a darker shade—so far, in fact, of a Ko yao type. The decoration is of a predominant leafy green, with a little purple and yellow here and there; but on the flowers we find, in addition, an enamel of turquoise, poor in colour, indeed, but certainly a copper blue. Both these examples are classed as Ming, and both would seem to show that the combination of the turquoise enamel (essentially a silicate of copper and soda) with the lead-fluxed green had been attempted in Ming times. It was, however, impossible to obtain satisfactory results in this way, so that in Kang-he’s time the turquoise was reserved for the demi grand feu, and the green alone used as an enamel over the glaze.
59 ‘Muffle-colours,’ of course in these later examples painted over the glaze, and therefore to be classed as enamels.
60 In this respect we may compare such decoration to a dark water-colour drawing on white paper, where advantage is only taken of the white ground for scattered lights here and there.
61 We must always think of this great man in connection with his contemporary in France, Louis xiv. Omitting the early years of the French king, before he attained his majority, the two long reigns run almost exactly together.
62 This list is to be found in Julien’s book. Dr. Bushell has since given a more accurate translation, accompanied by a careful analysis (Chinese Ceramics, chapter xii.).
63 The red paste of early times was, however, imitated, and a ‘copper paste’ is also mentioned in connection with these old wares. The last expression is obscure, but it has certainly nothing to do with an enamel on copper.
64 On the other hand, on some large showy vases of this time we can trace a series of rings, giving an uneven surface. These are caused either by the undue pressure of the potter’s fingers (vissage), or perhaps in part by the way in which the successive stages of the jar were built up with ‘sausage-shaped’ rolls of clay.
65 How this iron red was manipulated, apparently at a transition period, so as to obtain an effect approaching that of the rouge d’or, is described on page 162.
66 A ruby-red can be obtained by careful manipulation from gold alone. We may regard the addition of tin as a convenient method of developing the colour which was apparently known to the mediæval alchemists.
67 It would be a point of special interest to determine the date when these two colours—the pink (used as a ground) and the opaque turquoise blue—were first used in China. Their presence together with the lemon-yellow gives perhaps the first note of a period of decline. There is in the British Museum a bowl and saucer covered on the outside with this rose enamel and bearing this unusual inscription—‘the Sin-chou year occurring again.’ This expression was referred by Franks to the sixty-first year of the reign of Kang-he, when the cyclical year in which his reign began recurred again, an unprecedented fact in Chinese history. In the same collection is a saucer-shaped plate with a pale pink ground with the mark of the period Yung-cheng. But the evidence in favour of a somewhat later date for the fully developed use of the rouge d’or seems to me fairly strong. Dr. Bushell, however, tells me that he has seen other examples where the same inscription is found upon ware decorated with the rouge d’or, and that he accepts the early date (1722) on the Sin-chou plate. I return to this question on page 136.
68 Julien omitted this curious passage in his translation as devoid of interest!
69 There are two magnificent vases of the black lacquered ware, each about eight feet high, in the Musée Guimet, and of the brown variety a well-preserved spherical bowl may be seen at South Kensington.
70 The snuff-bottles of the Chinese represent the inro of the Japanese. Both were originally used for pills and for eye medicine.
71 Dr. Bushell tells us that she is an accomplished artist and calligraphist, and that her autograph signature is much valued. She is said to have sent down from the palace, to be copied at King-te-chen, bowls and dishes of the time of Kien-lung, just as that emperor in his day forwarded from Pekin examples of Sung and Ming wares with the same object. So the old tradition is kept up!
72 These references are to the plates of marks at the end of the book.
73 See, however, p. 110 note, for a curious instance of its use.
74 A good example of a date-mark of Wan-li in this position may be seen on the vase reproduced on Pl. vii. Fig. 2.
75 Why, by the way, do we find, in catalogues otherwise well edited, porcelain ascribed to the Kang-he dynasty? One might as well speak of the Louis xiv. dynasty.
76 At least such was the case when the Canal was in working order. For some time since, the Grand Canal has only been navigable when the country is flooded.
77 I cannot find the exact date of the first publication of these letters. In the eighteenth century we find them generally quoted from Du Halde.
78 This is a passage made use of by Longfellow in those often-quoted lines beginning—
‘A burning town, or seeming so,
Three thousand furnaces that glow,’ etc.
79 If we are to understand by this ‘transparent pebble’ some form of arsenic, for it would seem that arsenic (and not tin as with us) is the base of the opaque white enamels of the Chinese, it is difficult to believe that so volatile a substance could be thus prepared.
80 For the use of steatite in English porcelain see chap. xxii. At Vinovo, in Piedmont, another magnesian mineral has been employed for the paste.
81 In the following summary I have kept to the Père D’Entrecolles’s words as far as possible, but with considerable abbreviations.
82 We must here think of the more sober famille verte lantern at South Kensington, rather than of the magnificent specimen of pierced work in the Salting collection, which is of later date.
83 The unique bowl of Chinese porcelain illustrated in Du Sartel’s book, of which the outside is decorated in black and gold in imitation of the Limoges enamel of the renaissance, may have had some such origin. This piece, on which even the initials of the original French artist have been copied, was formerly in the Marquis collection, and is now to be seen in the Grandidier Gallery at the Louvre.
84 We have already alluded to this point, à propos of a bowl in the British Museum; see p. 110 note.
85 This branch of the subject is fully worked out in chapter xvii. of Dr. Bushell’s work.
86 When compared with a similar collection of European wares, perhaps the most noticeable difference is the small number of vessels adapted to pouring. So much is this the case that when we find a spout or lip on a specimen of Chinese porcelain, the piece takes at once a somewhat exotic aspect, and we are reminded of the Arab Ibraik, or the European ewer.
87 It is a curious fact that London chemists now send out their pills in little glass bottles almost identical in shape and size with these Chinese yao-ping.
88 The word is used in a restricted sense as explained above.
89 We have far too often to fall back on names of French origin. Our colour-vocabulary in the case of the enamels and glazes of porcelain is a sadly poor one.
90 In the case of some monochrome ware the colour may have been painted on the raw paste or on the biscuit, and a colourless glaze then added; or again, as in the case of the coral red mentioned below, it may be painted like an enamel over the glaze.
91 It must, however, be remembered that this carved lacquer itself is sometimes applied as a coating to porcelain in China.
92 It would be convenient to have a name to include the whole series—the flambé, the sang de bœuf, the lavender Yuan, and perhaps also the peach-bloom and the ‘robin’s egg.’ I would propose to include all these classes under the head of transmutation glazes.
93 A French writer compares the effect to the ‘palette d’un coloriste montrée sous un morceau de glace’ (E. de Goncourt, La Maison d’un Artiste).
94 There were many kinds of ‘furnace transmutations’ known to the Chinese, mostly of a miraculous nature (see Bushell, p. 219).
95 When applied to the whole surface, a similar slip forms the ground on which the decoration is painted in the case of many kinds of European and Saracenic fayence, but in such ware the slip is used to conceal a more or less coarse and coloured paste.
96 It may, however, be noticed, on close examination, that the crackles do not seem to be developed in the lower glaze covered by the slip. This would rather point to both the first and the second coats of glaze, as well as the intermediate slip, being all applied before the firing.
97 Not that we need claim any great age for these plates, but it is in such places that old types (as e.g. the celadon) are likely to continue in fashion.
98 We may perhaps connect the first steady export of ‘blue and white’ direct to Europe with the establishment of the Dutch at Nagasaki, where they probably employed Chinese workmen.
99 So what is by far the most successful imitation of Chinese ‘blue and white’ ever produced in Europe was made by the Dutch, in the enamelled fayence of Delft, about the middle of the century.
100 In Japanese art also we find the prunus as a symbol of the approaching spring, but there the branches are covered with freshly fallen snow. The contrast of the weather in early spring, in China and Japan respectively, could not be better expressed—by ice in the one case, by soft thawing snow in the other.
101 Dr. Zimmermann, the curator of the Dresden Museum, regards the black division of the famille verte as a product of the demi grand feu, i.e. he holds that the black and green was painted on the biscuit. But this is certainly not the case with the fully developed examples. I may say that this class is only represented at Dresden by some small roughly painted plates.
[102] We find it so used, however, upon the Japanese ‘Kakiyemon’ porcelain, some of which cannot be much later than the middle of the seventeenth century.
103 Since writing this I have discovered a tall-necked bottle of this ware at South Kensington, which is stated to have been purchased in Persia (Pl. xx.).
104 That is to say, no attempt was ever made to imitate the material—the hard paste.
105 An important collection of armorial china was bequeathed to the Museum in 1887 by the Rev. Charles Walker.
106 This plate belongs to a group in which the arms, above all the mantlings, are in the style of the seventeenth century. On these the gules is always rendered by an opaque iron-red, although the new rouge d’or is freely used in the rest of the decoration. I learn from my friend Colonel Croft Lyons that the arms on this plate are those of Leake Okeover, who was born in 1701. The initials, repeated four times on the margin, L. M. O., stand for Leake and his wife Mary. The plate, therefore, cannot well have been painted before, say, 1725.
107 This class of Kuang yao must not be confused with the old heavy pieces of Yuan ware mentioned on p. 77.
108 I quote, with a few contractions, from the edition of 1774.
109 I have examined the Korean pottery in the British Museum, at Sèvres, and that in some of the German museums, but I have not seen the specimens in the Ethnographical Museum at Hamburg, which are said to be very remarkable.
110 For an account of the exploration of Sawankalok, see Man, the volume for 1901. By the kind permission of Mr. Read I have been able to closely examine the specimens which are now deposited in the British Museum.
111 We may mention that the Japanese appear also to give the name of Kochi to other wares, especially to the deep blue and turquoise porcelain with decoration in ribbed cloisons which we have attributed to early Ming times.
112 We may compare with this the impulse given, some four hundred years later, in Europe, to the spread of the use of porcelain at the time when tea was first introduced in the West.
113 See page 66. This Sung ware is known to the Japanese as ‘Temmoku,’ and is highly esteemed by them.
114 Many, however, of these so-called Jesuit plates were probably painted at King-te-chen at a later date. Christianity was finally and ruthlessly crushed in Japan after the rebellion of 1637: in China it was tolerated up to the close of the reign of Kang-he (1721). I must refer back to a quotation from the Père D’Entrecolles given on p. 133. See also a curious note in Marryat, where a statuette of Quanyin, with the boy patron of learning, is described as ‘a Virgin and Child.’—Pottery and Porcelain, p. 293.
115 In the Dresden collection are several cases full of this early Japanese blue and white.
116 The Chinese, however, were given much greater liberty than the Dutch.
117 See the South Kensington handbook on Japanese pottery, p. 86. In the chapter on Japanese ceramics contained in the magnificently illustrated History of the Arts of Japan, published in 1901 in connection with the Paris Exhibition, a little further light is thrown on the history of porcelain in that country. But in this work and in the other guides published at the time of our American and European exhibitions (and the same may be said of the Japanese report contained in the South Kensington handbook), the same scanty materials are served up again and again.
118 Ambassades Mémorables de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales des Provinces Unies vers les Empereurs du Japon, Amsterdam, 1680, Part ii. p. 102. I take the reference from Marryat, but I have not been able to find the book.
119 We know of no Chinese type to which we can refer this decoration. Certain points of resemblance have been found with the work of the great contemporary Japanese artist Tanyu. The most characteristic motifs are the tiger, the dancing boy with long sleeves, and the straw hedge.
120 The ‘old Japan’ was at one time closely copied at King-te-chen for exportation to Europe. (Cf. Pl. xxiv. 1.)
121 The composition of the Owari porcelain is more normal, the silica only amounting to 65 per cent.; but as the paste contains little or no lime, it comes nearer to the hard porcelain of Berlin than to the milder Chinese type.
122 Much, however, of the china-stone of Cornwall differs little in composition from the Imari stone; but the latter contains, as we have said, soda, in place of the more usual potash.
123 It is to this Koransha, I understand, that we are indebted for the historical notices on Japanese porcelain that have appeared on the occasion of our successive international exhibitions (see above, p. 183 note).
124 Captain Brinkley speaks of the lower edge being serrated, but I have never seen any specimen of this serration.
125 Another seal was granted to Zengoro with the inscription (reading in Chinese) Hopin chi liu (Pl. B. 24). This refers to an old tradition that Shun, a Chinese emperor of very early date, had, before his accession to the throne, made pottery at a place called Hopin, in Honan. This story is told by Ssuma Chien, the ‘Herodotus of China,’ and would be well known to scholars in Japan. These characters are sometimes found on Japanese ware. (Cf. Bushell, chap. i., and the Franks catalogue, fig. 191, where, however, the words are wrongly interpreted.) Yeiraku, I should add, may be also rendered ‘long content.’
126 This question of the relation between the Kishiu, the Kochi of the Japanese, and our class of old Ming wares with coloured glazes, is full of difficulties. It remains for some Japanese connoisseur, who is at the same time both an expert in ceramics and a good Chinese scholar, to clear it up.
127 This work is analysed by Dr. Hirth in his essay on Ancient Chinese Porcelain already referred to.
128 Dr. Meyer, who brought this collection together, has always supported the theory that in early days no true porcelain was ever made except in China. In support of this he points to the specimens, including ‘wasters,’ from Sawankalok in Siam, in this collection, as being all of stoneware. We have seen (p. 173) that more recent excavations in the same neighbourhood have brought to light fragments of true porcelain of undoubted local manufacture. It is true, however, that most of the examples of celadon in the Dresden collection are of what we should call a kaolinic stoneware.
129 I suppose that Franks, who refers to this notice, was satisfied that the present really consisted of Chinese ware. Many slips have been made in quoting this passage, but I will only point out that Nureddin, who died in 1173, has no claim to the title of caliph.
130 This belief, however, long lingered not only in the East, but even in Europe. According to some, if poison was present, the bowl lost its transparency; others state that the liquid would boil up in the centre, remaining clear round the edge. In a French comic poem, written as late as 1716, among other merits possessed by vessels of Chinese porcelain, it is claimed for them that—
‘Ils font connaître les mystères
Des bouillons à la Brinvillière.’
131 By far the greater number of the fragments are of local or at least of Saracenic origin, and many of them may be as old as the date mentioned in the text. But at Fostât, at all events, some of the pot-sherds are of a much later date. There are important collections of fragments from these rubbish-heaps both in the British Museum and at South Kensington.
132 Professor Karabacek of Vienna quotes from the encyclopædist Hâdji Khalifa, who died in 1658: ‘The precious magnificent celadon dishes seen in his time were manufactured and exported at Martabani, in Pegu.’
133 The little bowl of apple-green porcelain in the British Museum, ‘garnished’ with a mounting of the time of Henry viii., has perhaps as long a European history. The two ‘Trenchard’ bowls (in spite of the later date of the mounting) probably came to England in 1506.
134 I think that it is not unlikely that during the time that King-te-chen lay waste, kilns may have been erected somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Canton river, and that from these kilns originated much of the rough ware, hastily decorated in blue, that reached India and Persia in such quantities at this time (cf. the statement of Raynal quoted on p. 166). We have spoken in the last chapter of the influence of these events upon the Japanese trade.
135 I am referring, of course, to Stuart times. In the eighteenth century the so-called Gombroon ware was of Persian origin, and recognised as such in England.
136 The word ‘china’ is used in this sense, I think, by no other European nation.
137 See, however, for the Portuguese merchants who sold porcelain in France, the note on page 230.
138 The Abbé Raynal, writing about 1770, says that connoisseurs divide Oriental porcelain into six classes—‘truitée, vieille blanche, de Japon, de Chine, le Japon Chiné et la porcelaine des Indes.’
139 Marryat’s extracts are unfortunately often carelessly quoted; nor is it easy in all cases to control them by reference to the originals.
140 August ii. certainly bought a collection of porcelain from the Bassetouche family for 6750 thalers. It would be interesting to know of what wares this collection consisted. The only further additions until quite recent times have been to the European department.
141 The tradition of the ‘dinner-service’ made in China for Charles v., and presented by him to Moritz of Saxony (or, as others say, captured from him by that prince), belongs to the same category of stories as that of the crusader’s cup. No such commission as this was possible at so early a date, and there is nothing in the Dresden collection that could be connected with such a service.
142 ‘Menez-moi chez les Portugais
Nous y verrons à peu de frais
Des marchandises de la Chine
... de la porcelaine fine,’ etc.—Scarron, Paris Burlesque.
143 In 1689 Madame de Sévigné notes the quantity of Oriental porcelain imported at L’Orient.
144 Are we to identify these with some huge Imari vases, now in the Louvre, with coats of arms bearing the French lilies and the label of Orleans? Some similar vases, with the same arms, have lately been seen in dealers’ shops in London.
145 The catalogues of Gersaint and of some other early French collections may be found at South Kensington.
146 Passeri, writing in 1752 in favour of the then neglected majolica, claims that ‘la parte brutale dell’ uomo sarà a favor delle porcellane, ma l’intellettuale e raziocinativa giudicherà a favor delle nostre majoliche.’
147 Recent researches in the archives of Venice have proved that Oriental porcelain was comparatively abundant in Venice at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Dr. Ludwig has shown me extracts from the inventory of the property of a rich ‘cittadino’ who died in 1526, in which can be distinguished plain white, blue and white, and porcelain decorated with red, green, and gold.
148 It is quite possible that Palissy may have tried his hand at this problem. M. Solon has suggested that in the many years’ labour at Saintes (when attempting especially to imitate ‘the cup with white enamel’) Palissy was really seeking to make porcelain.
149 I take the following from the excellent catalogue of the Ceramic Museum at Limoges, by E. Garnier: ‘1125. Pot à Pommade, de forme cylindrique godronné à la partie inférieure et décoré en bleu d’une bande de lambrequins. Marque A.P.’ Some other small pieces in this museum are classed as Rouen porcelain.
150 Professor Church allows that ‘the substance of some of these statuettes is distinctly porcellanous.’ He found, however, in a fragment of this ware as much as 79·5 per cent. of silica, and only 12·5 per cent. of alumina (Cantor Lectures, 1881).
151 This feeling is well expressed in a contemporary drinking-song:—
‘To drink is a Christian diversion
Unfit for your Turk or your Persian;
Let Mohammedan fools live by heathenish rules,
And get drunk over tea-cups and coffee,
But let British lads sing, give a rouse for the king,
A fig for your Turk and your Sophi.’
The punch-bowl of porcelain, however, came to the rescue about this time.
152 In the porcelain gallery at Dresden may be seen (together with one or two small lumps of gold and silver, the results of Böttger’s alchemistic experiments) some snuff-boxes and little flasks of a marbled glass, made by Tschirnhaus at an early date. It is probable that the latter experimenter’s researches lay rather in the way of a frit-made soft paste, on the same lines as the contemporary attempts in France.
153 And yet, forty years later (so well was the secret kept), it was maintained by practical authorities in France that the Saxon ware was no true porcelain, but only some kind of hard enamel. See Hellot’s Mémoire, quoted below.
154 We hear, however, of Dutch potters being engaged as early as 1708, and with their assistance Böttger, in 1709, made some imitations of Delft ware.
155 In a contemporary German pamphlet, which I only know from a French translation (Secret des Vrais Porcelaines de la Chine et de Saxe, Paris, 1752), a certain ‘spath alkalin’ is mentioned as an important element in Saxon porcelain, and this substance is identified with the petuntse of the Père D’Entrecolles.
156 If this colour is derived from the purple of Cassius, as seems probable, it is an important instance of the early use of this pigment upon porcelain.
157 Above all the famous ‘Swan Service’ of 1736, Kändler’s masterpiece.
158 We had in England until lately an unrivalled collection of these little groups—priceless specimens of the best period. They were exhibited by their owner, Mr. Massey Mainwaring, for some time at Bethnal Green. This collection has, however, now found its way to America.
159 On the other hand, as early as 1732 the Meissen ware was finding its way to the East. Quantities of little coffee-cups (known as Türken Copjen, corrupted into Türken Köpfchen) were sent to Constantinople to be re-exported to other Mohammedan countries.
160 We may remind the reader that it was a syndicate of Berlin merchants who at an earlier date sought, it is said, to purchase from Böttger his secret. There is little doubt, however, that the anecdotes about Ringler, which abound in the notices on German porcelain, are little more than ‘porcelain myths.’ Very similar anecdotes are told of the early days at Vincennes, and in Japan, as we have seen, such stories sometimes take a more tragical form. There is a strong temptation, no doubt, in traversing the somewhat arid ground of German ceramics, to fall back on such tales. At all events they belong to the class of tendenz Mährchen, and illustrate the difficulties to be overcome at that time in starting a new factory.
161 Not but that we have proof of his interest in the subject, as the following letter, dated Meissen, March 28, 1761, will show. It is written to Madame Camas, his chère Maman, who was then with the queen at Magdeburg:—‘I send you, my dear mamma, a little trifle, by way of keepsake and memento. You may use the box for your rouge, for your patches, or you may put snuff in it or bonbons or pills.... I have ordered porcelain for all the world, for Schönhausen, for my sisters-in-law,—in fact I am rich in this brittle material only. And I hope the receivers will accept it as current money: for the truth is, we are poor as can be, good mamma. I have nothing left but my honour, my coat, my sword, and my porcelain.’—Carlyle’s Frederick the Great, Book xx. chap. vi. Marryat, who gives this letter in his notes, mixes up Carlyle’s comments with the text.
162 The Hohenzollern shield bears two sceptres in saltire en surtout.
163 Another account gives the credit to Von Löwenfinck, a porcelain painter from Meissen.
164 Politically, that is to say; for the town formed part of the ‘Pays d’Étrangers,’ and its commercial and social relations were still rather with Germany than with France.
165 I take these facts about the Hannong family from Sir A. Wollaston Franks’s Catalogue of Continental Porcelain, 1896.
166 In the same year we find Count Schimmelmann, who at a later date interested himself in the Copenhagen factory, selling by auction at Hamburg some of the vast stocks of Meissen china that Frederick had thrown on the market.
167 As a royal factory, however, it became extinct in 1864. See chap. xxiii.
168 Thus we have, during the Seven Years’ War, Frederick’s three bitter opponents—Maria Theresa in Austria, Elizabeth in Russia, and the Marquise de Pompadour in France—all taking an active interest in promoting the manufacture of porcelain, and this rivalry may have added to the zest of Frederick when he looted Meissen and sought to make Berlin take its place as the metropolis of porcelain.
169 An American writer has arranged the tests by which soft pastes may be distinguished from true porcelains under six heads. 1. The file test.—Soft porcelain may be marked by a file. 2. The foot test.—In hard porcelain the foot is generally rough and unglazed. This test is rather of value in distinguishing porcelain from fayence. 3. The fire test.—Depending on the greater fusibility of the soft pastes. 4. Chemical test. 5. Colour test.—Soft paste is generally mellow ivory by transmitted light, and this is especially true of ‘bone-ware.’ The hard paste tends to bluish shades. 6. Fracture test.—The fracture is glassy to vitreous, and the glaze passes into the paste in the case of hard pastes (the subconchoidal splintery fracture is rather the point to observe); dry and chalky, and the glaze more or less separated from the paste in the case of soft pastes.—E. A. Barber, Pottery and Porcelain of the United States, New York, 1901.
170 De Réaumur, we must remember, had made some kind of hard-paste porcelain from Chinese materials. After that he fell back upon his devitrified glass. Something very similar had been made by Tschirnhaus many years before.
171 These, I think, are almost the only instances in which a distinctly seventeenth century decoration is to be found on porcelain.
172 These trembleuse saucers of the early eighteenth century have a projecting ring into which the base of the teacup fits.
173 The extreme limits for this mark are 1712-62, but Chaffers says it was not used before 1730, according to another authority not before 1735. De Frasnay, in a note to his curious little poem in praise of fayence (1735), says: ‘le secret du beau rouge n’est guère connu en France que d’un très petit nombre de personnes.’ The point is of interest in connection with the origin of the famille rose in China. We may here note that the minute quantity of gold—the source of all these pink and purple colours—is not necessarily introduced in the form of the tin salt, the purple of Cassius. But this difficult question will be best treated in connection with the history of glass.
174 Generally known as the Duc de Bourbon (1710-40). He was an enthusiast for the art of the Far East. An important work on Chinese art was published under his auspices in 1735. He imitated the painted hangings of the East, and even attempted to make Japanese lacquer. After his death, the two brothers Dubois, épiciers à Chantilly, migrated to Vincennes, and the Chantilly works were for a time neglected. See Gustave Macon, Les arts dans la Maison de Condé, 1903.
175 Of the many European imitations of the ‘Kakiyemon’ style the Chantilly is most successful, while the ‘Old Japan’ was best copied at Chelsea. No European imitation in porcelain of the Chinese blue and white approaches in brilliancy that made in Delft ware in the seventeenth century.
176 The porcelain of Saint-Cloud and Chantilly is well represented in the Fitzhenry collection.
177 Some twenty miles south of Paris, not far from Corbeil.
178 The name is written ‘Sèves’ in English catalogues of the eighteenth century, and the same form is found sometimes in contemporary French writings. We may compare the favourite signature ‘Fédéric’ of the Prussian king.
179 Mémoire Historique pour la Manufacture, rédigé en 1781 par Bachelier, re-edited, with preface and notes, by G. Gouellain, Paris, 1878.
180 See the note on p. 286. It would seem that the first successes at Vincennes were, in a measure, dependent upon the temporary breaking up of the factory at Chantilly on the death of the Duc de Bourbon in 1740.
181 At a later time this man had a contract for the delivery of the paste, the secret of which he preserved, at a fixed rate per pound. In one year he is said to have received for this 800,000 livres!
182 Such is my general impression, but M. Garnier, I see, speaks highly of his artistic capabilities. Bachelier founded in 1763 a free school of design, one of the few institutions of the old régime that have survived the many changes of government. It still exists as the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts.
[183] By this we get a hint as to the kind of ware made at Vincennes at the commencement, when under the influence of Chantilly.
184 The account-books of these sales are still preserved. M. Davillier, in his little book on Les porcelaines de Sèvres et Madame du Barry, quotes the record of purchases made (at a later date, for the most part) by the royal family, by Madame du Deffand, and by M. de Voltaire. The latter bought, for 120 livres, ‘Deux bustes de mondit Sieur, en biscuit.’ Besides this, large sales were made yearly to the trade.
185 The above description is that given by the Prince de Ligne in his memoirs. In the Johanneum at Dresden there is now to be seen a ‘bouquet’ which in every way corresponds to the prince’s account. The Meissen works for long had the credit of this trophy, but it is now acknowledged that it is identical with the present sent by the dauphine, in 1748, to her father, the Elector of Saxony. M. Davillier quotes a curious account from a contemporary memoir describing the difficulties and expenses incurred in transporting this ‘bouquet’ from Paris to Dresden. Are we, then, to regard it as the actual present given by M. de Fulvi to the queen, or as a duplicate?
186 See for this and other references to porcelain in the chronique scandaleuse of the day, the little book of M. Davillier quoted above.
187 Some attention was paid to the housing and comfort of the workmen at the new establishment, but Bachelier makes no mention of ‘the gardens, cascades, fruit-trees, groves, woods, and a small chase for the artists, who enjoyed to hunt the stag and the wild boar none the less for their sedentary lives in the art palace’ (Marryat, p. 414). On the contrary, we are told that in a few years the houses and workshops were already threatening to fall down on the workmen’s heads.
188 M. Bertin was himself a great collector of Chinese porcelain. In the avertissement of the catalogue of his collection which was sold in Paris in 1815, we are told that through the medium of the Père Amiot he obtained many choice specimens, some of them direct presents from the Chinese emperor. We have already alluded to Kien-lung’s interest in exotic wares, and to the influence of these upon the native decoration.
189 In the fond lapis caillouté the deep blue ground is painted with fine veins of gold, to imitate the pyrites which generally accompanies the native stone (lapis lazuli). It was used as early as 1758 (see Wallace collection, Gallery xviii., Case c.).
190 As many as one hundred and sixty pieces, it is said, were carried off during a fire at Tsarskoe Selo. Some of these were afterwards repurchased by the Tsar Nicholas.
191 Marryat quotes a passage to the following effect from a little work published at Venice soon after the death of the favourite. Praising the good taste of the ‘Madame Marchesa,’ the writer states that this was, above all, manifested in the adornment of her table. All the porcelain was expressly manufactured for her at Sèvres, and was of a rose colour mixed with gold. The value amounted to 257,000 livres, and no sovereign possessed a service of equal beauty.
192 It is found as a ground on pieces bearing the earliest letter-marks, so that it is difficult to accept the statement that it was first made by Xhrouet, a painter of landscapes, in 1757.
193 Much of it found its way to England, and was there decorated in the old Sèvres style, both in London and in the West.
194 For a detailed description of these deposits and their geological relations, see Brongniart’s great work.
195 Napoleon at one time sent Daru to Sèvres to convey to Brongniart, in the most lively terms, his dissatisfaction with what he called the simplicity and tameness of the designs in use at Sèvres. Every piece should, he protests, ‘dire quelque chose.’ Every plate should record glorious deeds, the capture of the enemy’s towns, or the triumphant return of the victors.
196 We must, however, place some of these discoveries to the credit of the staff of the Viennese factory, and Dihl again, the chemist of the porcelain works in the Rue de Bondy, has a claim to others.
197 The death of M. Garnier occurred since the above was written.
198 The use of a bone-paste ware of the ‘Spode’ type is, however, now prevalent not only in many parts of the continent, but porcelain of this kind is now largely made in the United States.
199 Unless it be in the catalogue drawn up by Sir A. W. Franks for his collection of continental china. The ceramic collection in the Hamburg Museum has also been very thoroughly catalogued by Dr. Brinckmann.
200 It is curious to find Venice at this time exporting porcelain to the East, for at an earlier period it was through this town that so much Oriental porcelain and fayence reached Europe.
201 This Venetian china, either of hard paste or of the hybrid class, must not be confused with the opaque glass, the lattimo, or, more properly, Latisuol, ware, made about 1730 in imitation of porcelain both at Murano, and also near Bassano.
202 Compare with this the use of steatite, a magnesian rock, from the Lizard, at Worcester, and at other West of England factories. The Chinese have also at times made use of a steatitic rock.
203 Marryat (p. 451) gives an interesting account of this enterprising man. He was occupied also in the draining of marshes, the improvement of agriculture, and the promotion of commerce.
204 With this appointment we may perhaps connect the elaborate trophy of white porcelain at South Kensington. The figures of slaves on which this is supported are modelled after those of Tacca on the celebrated monument at Leghorn. This piece is attributed, however, to the Capo di Monte factory.
205 The word ‘china’ is sometimes used in Spain in the same vague sense as in England, but the name seems only to have come in with the Staffordshire ware so largely imported in the last century. Note, however, that the factory at Buen Retiro was known as La China.
206 I quote this remarkable passage from Sir A. W. Franks’s paper on the origin of the Chelsea porcelain works (Archæol. Journal, 1862). Marryat misquotes and misinterprets the passage.
207 One possible exception to this very general statement may be found in a pamphlet quoted by Mr. Solon, Instructions how to make as good china as was ever sold by the East India Company by A. Hill, London, 1716. According to this writer, fragments of Oriental china were to be finely ground and mixed with fluxing and plastic materials to form a paste. Now there is evidence that at a much later date ‘potsherds’ were imported from China, and ground up to form an ingredient of the porcelain, both at Bow and at Worcester.
208 The memorandum-book of Duesbury, the future porcelain king, begins in 1742. He was then working, on weekly wages, as an ‘enameller’ of china figures. But was the ware that he was decorating at this time a true porcelain?
209 Mr. Burton says that at the present day the Staffordshire porcelain is composed of bone-ash 6 parts, china-stone 4 parts, and kaolin 3½ parts.
210 Mr. Willett, of Brighton, has a pair of ‘goat and bee’ jugs in silver, with the hall-mark of 1739.
211 There is an interesting series of these very early pieces in the British Museum. A white ware salt-cellar, with crayfish in relief, has the triangle mark. A jug, in the form of a grotesque Chinaman, is a good specimen of the early paste. We notice the same waxy look in the paste that we find in the Saint-Cloud ware. The surface, however, is generally grayer.
212 In 1758 we find an advertisement of a house to let in ‘China Walk,’ Chelsea.
213 Both Gouyn and his successor, Sprimont, were very likely Walloons from the neighbourhood of Liége. In a contemporary work, however, the latter is spoken of as ‘a French artist of great abilities.’ Rouguet’s Present State of the Arts, 1755.
214 Note the term ‘earthenware.’ As in a much earlier proclamation of the time of Charles ii. (forbidding the importation of painted earthenware, except ‘those of China, and stone bottles and jugs’), the word is used officially to include porcelain.
215 Such a regulation would seem to show that in England the enamel-painters were in the field earlier than the manufacturers of porcelain.
216 The later date is supported by the statement of Sprimont in his ‘Case,’ that ‘the ground flat of the manufacturer has gone on still increasing,’ for we know that the works were enlarged in 1757. The expression ‘crowned head’ applies better to the King of Prussia than to the Elector of Saxony. In 1760, as we have seen, Count Schimmelmann was at Hamburg selling, on behalf of Frederick, part of the vast stocks accumulated at Meissen.
217 In a London paper of December 4, 1763, appeared the following statement—I quote from Mr. Nightingale’s book,—‘A few days since, his R. Highness the Duke of Cumberland was at Mr. Sprimont’s manufactory at Chelsea, and we are informed that his Highness will shortly purchase the same, that so matchless an art should not be lost.’ A week later, however, a formal contradiction of this report appeared in another paper, in the form of a note at the end of an advertisement of the sale of the contents of Sprimont’s factory. All this has a very modern air. We have a skilful combination of the ballon d’essai and the puff preliminary.
218 This collection has lately disappeared from its old home in the Geological Museum, where it had been the delight of two generations of collectors. Most of the specimens have, however, quite recently been discovered at South Kensington.
219 Much of the white ware at this time was decorated outside by ‘chamberers.’ Compare the memorandum-book of Duesbury quoted below.
220 The advertisement of these sales in contemporary newspapers, and many of the catalogues, have been collected together and reprinted by the late Mr. J. E. Nightingale.
221 Before this time the gold had been simply laid on with japanner’s size and only gently heated. See Burton’s English Porcelain, p. 46.
222 There was a revival of the practice of mounting, or, to use the old term, ‘garnishing’ porcelain in ormolu about this time. At Boulton’s works at Soho, near Birmingham, famous, a little later, in the history of the steam-engine, these metal mountings were largely made, and Wedgwood began to apply them to some of his wares (see Nightingale, p. xxxiv.).
223 I can find no confirmation of the statement that Roubiliac modelled figures for Sprimont. Certain statuettes bearing an R. impressed on the paste have been attributed to him. There is no reference to any such work in the life of the artist by M. Le Roy de St. Croix (Lyons, 1886). Roubiliac, who died in 1762, was already in 1750 at the height of his reputation, and fully employed in more important work.
224 Mr. Burton points out that it would be quite impossible to make a translucent ware with the materials of the first patent. He doubts also the use of bone-ash in the earlier porcelain of Bow, the paste of which is distinctly of the Saint-Cloud type. I think, however, that there can be little doubt but that the ‘virgin earth’ refers to bone-ash, and the fragments from Bow in which this substance has been found seem to be derived from an early ware.
225 Specimens from this find may be seen at the British Museum, at South Kensington, and in the late Jermyn Street collection. An interesting and detailed account of the fragments, which were excavated and arranged by Mr. Higgins of the adjacent match-works, will be found in Chaffers’s Marks, pp. 908 seq.
226 This difficulty of making the decoration keep pace with the outturn of the kilns was felt at this time at other kilns—from King-te-chen to Sèvres and Worcester. Recourse was more and more had to the outside enameller—the ‘chamberer’—on the one hand, and to transfer-printing on the other.
227 This document is exhibited at the British Museum by the side of the punch-bowl.
228 These figures are probably exaggerated. Sprimont, a little earlier, says that he was employing at Chelsea ‘at least one hundred hands.’
229 ‘Printed teas and mugs’ are mentioned in Bowcocke’s memorandum-book in 1756.
230 See Nightingale’s English Porcelain, pp. li. seq., and Bemrose’s Bow, Chelsea, and Derby Porcelain, pp. 153 seq.
231 The rococo vases, however, of this ware in the British Museum seem to be of a somewhat later date, if we take Sprimont’s work at Chelsea as a criterion.
232 These ‘Darby figars’ may possibly have been of earthenware. There are some richly painted statuettes of this material at South Kensington, though these indeed seem to be of a somewhat later date.
233 Mr. Bemrose, in his work on Bow, Chelsea, and Derby Porcelain, gives photographic reproductions of several pages from Duesbury’s work-book.
234 These details I take from the notes of a man who had formerly practical experience of such work—Mr. Haslem, in his Old Derby China Factory.
235 And yet the colours are sometimes brilliant and effective—for example, on a large dish or tray of Spode ware at South Kensington (see below, p. 373). This strange ‘breaking-down’ of the old Japanese patterns may be compared to the scattered fragments of the original Greek design that we see on the pre-Roman coins of Gaul and Britain.
236 It appears from a correspondence that has been preserved that in 1791 the second Duesbury was looking out for royal support. ‘A gentleman about the court’ whom he consulted recommended him to seek the patronage of the Duke of Clarence, for, said he, ‘the duke is the only prince that pays the tradespeople.’ At that time there was great jealousy of the Worcester works, where the king had lately made large purchases.
237 Why Tonquin, of all places? We should rather have expected to find Nankin or Canton, as at Bow.
238 See the engraving in the Gentleman’s Magazine for August 1752. This was in the nature of a puff. In the corner we read ‘A sale of the Manufacture will begin at the Worcester Music Meeting on September 20th, with great variety of ware and, ’tis said, at a moderate price.’ Edward Cave, the originator of the Gentleman’s Magazine, and ‘the father of parliamentary reporting,’ was an important shareholder of the Worcester works.
239 Steatite is essentially a silicate of magnesia. We have seen that a soapy rock, probably of this nature, entered at times into the composition of the porcelain made at King-te-chen. At a later time silicate of magnesia, in various forms, has found its way into the hybrid pastes of Italy and Spain.
240 These two buildings may be probably traced back to the Temple of Vespasian, in the Forum, and to the Pyramid of Cestius respectively. Hancock must have got his materials from French and Italian engravings after Claude and Pannini.
241 Dr. Johnson was for a long time a close neighbour—his well-known interest in the manufacture of porcelain must have brought him into contact with the Baxter family. We find a Baxter mentioned in Bowcocke’s notes as early as 1751. See Chaffers, p. 896.
242 The teapot in the Schreiber collection with the mark ‘Allen, Lowestoft,’ must be regarded as a supercherie. The painting on it of a crucifixion is evidently by a Chinese hand. This teapot has, however, been connected with an Allen of Lowestoft, a porcelain enameller and amateur glass-stainer.
243 Some recent discoveries of moulds make it, however, probable that the early wares of Worcester and Bow were imitated at Lowestoft.
244 We are told that the first three of these substances are to be fritted together, but this would be manifestly impossible. The recipe is curious as being an anticipation of the materials used by Spode thirty years later. But we must receive most of these recipes that have thus come down to us cum grano.
245 This ‘soapy rock’ was at once identified with the steatite of the Lizard. The other porcelain experts, from Worcester and from Liverpool, who visited Cornwall about this time, seem to have devoted their attention more especially to this substance. They were thus, to some extent, on a false scent, for the Père D’Entrecolles probably somewhat exaggerated the importance of this Wha-she, and, moreover, as has been shown by later French investigation, most of the material of soapy consistency employed at King-te-chen is no true steatite or magnesian silicate, but rather a more fusible variety of the petuntse, containing much mica.
246 Was Frye, the painter of Bow, who first made use of the American earth, also a quaker? Cookworthy and Champion, it appears, first became acquainted with one another through the medium of one of the Bristol Frys, and it is known that moulds and patterns from Bow were used at Plymouth. It is at least remarkable that we should be indebted for our knowledge of the constitution of Chinese porcelain, in the first place, to a Jesuit father, and then to a member of the Society of Friends; while, on the other hand, Böttger—like Cookworthy, a druggist—was an adept in the dark arts.
[247] Besides the factory mentioned in this letter, we hear from the diary of Dr. Pococke that as early as 1750 a white ware with reliefs was made at the ‘Lowris China house’ with ‘soapy-rock from Lizard Point.’ A sauce-boat marked ‘Bristoll’ is referred to these works in the Guide to English Pottery in the British Museum, p. 109.
248 Lauraguais (Comte de), Duc de Brancas, born 1733; died 1824.
249 See p. 306. At Strawberry Hill was ‘Michael Angelo’s Bacchus, made in the china of the Comte de Lauraguais, from the collection of the Comte de Caylus’ (Walpole’s Works, ii. 405 seq.).
250 By Champion, at least, at a later time. The cross swords have in some cases been subsequently obliterated (Pl. e. 84). Mr. Owen thinks that this was in consequence of a quarrel with the custom-house authorities in 1775.
251 And for tin also. The mark was adopted, no doubt, in honour of the ‘premier’ product of Cornwall. It would, however, be more in place on a ware with an opaque tin glaze, such as the soft paste of Chantilly.
252 So at Sèvres during the greater part of the last century the glaze has consisted of pegmatite, a very similar material to the Cornish growan-stone. The inconveniences of such a glaze have been pointed out by Vogt and others.
253 Of another workman employed by Champion, one Anthony Amatt, Mr. Hugh Owen gives some particulars. At one time, attempting to cross the Channel and find employment in France, he was arrested—at the instigation, it is said, of Wedgwood—and confined for some time as a State prisoner. Amatt died in 1851 at the age of ninety-two. Wedgwood was very active in preventing the emigration of English potters, who, he declared, were lured from their country by French and German agents (Meteyard’s Wedgwood, ii. p. 475).
254 There are also in existence some examples of undoubted Bristol hard-paste porcelain, covered with a soft lead glaze.
255 The porcelain made by Count Lauraguais, to judge by the analysis given above, must have contained even more kaolin than the Bristol ware.