THE porcelain made in Italy in the eighteenth century is not of much importance either from a technical or an artistic point of view. With the exception of the Capo di Monte ware and its imitations, examples are rarely found in English collections. On the whole the decoration is poor in effect, and closely follows in the wake of the German wares. This is the case at least with most of the porcelain made in the north of Italy. Following, probably unconsciously, the example of the early Medici ware, the refractory element in the eighteenth-century porcelain of Italy has generally been found in a natural kaolinic clay which here replaces the quartz-sand and the lime of the French soft paste, and it is this peculiarity in their composition which led Brongniart to form a special class for what he called the hybrid pastes of Italy.
Venice.—There is, as we have seen, strong evidence that porcelain was made in Venice in the sixteenth century, but such evidence is, unfortunately, only documentary. We are in almost as bad a position when we come to the ware manufactured in the city, perhaps as early as 1720, by the Vezzi, a family of lately ennobled goldsmiths (see Sir W. R. Drake,Notes on Venetian Ceramics, London, 1868, privately printed). This
PLATE XLI.1 AND 2—VENETIAN, BLUE AND WHITE3—MEISSEN4—FRANKENTHAL, LILAC AND GOLD
PLATE XLI.1 AND 2—VENETIAN, BLUE AND WHITE3—MEISSEN4—FRANKENTHAL, LILAC AND GOLD
PLATE XLI.1 AND 2—VENETIAN, BLUE AND WHITE3—MEISSEN4—FRANKENTHAL, LILAC AND GOLD
ware was made by Saxon workmen with clay obtained from Saxony. To this factory, however, we can safely attribute the tall cup and saucer, with the arms of Benedictxiii.(1724-30), and the mark ‘Ven^a’ (Pl. d. 63), in the Franks collection (No. 446).
At this time Hunger, the Saxon painter and gilder, was in Venice. He was already back at Meissen in 1725, and Dr. Brinckmann thinks that he may have brought back from Venice the process of passing the gilding through the muffle, which about that time replaced, at Meissen, the older plan of ‘lac-gilding.’ The Vezzi works were closed in 1740, and not till 1758 do we hear of fresh attempts to imitate the Meissen ware. This time it was a Saxon family driven out from Meissen by the war, one Hewelcke and his wife, who set up a short-lived factory in which they attempted to make porcelain ‘ad uso di Sassonia.’
It was probably with the assistance of Hewelcke that Geminiano Cozzi in 1764 established the porcelain works where (as we learn from the report drawn up by theInquisitor alle Artia few years later) he gave employment to forty-five workmen. Cozzi made porcelain ‘ad uso di Giappone,’ much of which was exported to Trieste and the Levant.[200]This ware, decorated in Oriental style, must have been made exclusively for the trade with the East, for, to judge from the specimens in our museums, it was rather the ware of Meissen than that of Imari that Cozzi took as his model. We find on his porcelain small views, especially coast-scenes and ports, outlined in black and gold; again, on tea-and coffee-services, flower-pieces andchinoiseries. He turned out also some biscuit and glazed statuettes of considerable merit. Cozzi’s factory survived until 1812. An anchor in red, largerthan that used at Chelsea, and of a different shape, is the mark usually found on this china[201](Pl. d. 64).
Le Nove.—A Venetian family, the Antonibon, had early in the eighteenth century established an important manufactory of majolica at Le Nove, near Bassano. Later on they turned their attention to porcelain and, after the year 1760, Pasquale Antonibon produced some successful ware marked with a star (Pl. d. 65). One or two well modelled and carefully finished specimens of this porcelain at South Kensington show the influence of both Meissen and Sèvres. These works were in operation as late as 1825.
Vinovo.—In the royal castle of Vinovo or Vineuf, near Turin, some unsuccessful endeavours to manufacture porcelain were made with the help of one of the younger Hannongs of Strassburg. A Turin doctor, Vittore Amadeo Gioanetti, who had already made numerous experiments with the clays and rocks of the district, met with better success about 1780. The paste of this ware contains a considerable amount of silicate of magnesia, obtained from a deposit of magnesite discovered in the neighbourhood by the doctor.[202]This hybrid ware is more easily fusible than a true porcelain, but it resists well rapid variations of temperature. The usual mark is the letter V surmounted by the cross of the house of Savoy (Pl. d. 66).
Capo di Monte.—Here in the northern suburbs of Naples, just beneath the Royal Palace, an importantfactory of soft-paste porcelain was established in 1742. Don Carlos, of Bourbon-Farnese extraction, had recently exchanged his dukedom of Parma for the throne of the Two Sicilies. In 1738 he had married a Saxon princess, but there is little sign of any German influence either in the design or composition of the ware made at his new porcelain factory at Capo di Monte. Like his cousin at Versailles at a later date, he took the keenest interest in the sale of his porcelain. An annual fair was held in front of the palace, and a large purchase there was a sure passport to the favour of the king, who is even said to have worked as a potter himself. When in 1759 Don Carlos succeeded to the throne of Spain as Charlesiii., he, as it were, carried his porcelain works with him, taking away the best workmen, so that little of interest was made at Naples after that date.
To this earlier period belong the plain white pieces often in imitation of sea-shells, or again resting on a heap of smaller shells moulded probably from nature (a very similar ware was made at Bow and other English factories). We find also highly coloured statuettes and groups of figures. But the name of Capo di Monte is associated above all with another style of decoration. The surface of the ware in this case is covered by groups of figures, mythological subjects by preference, and by vegetation, moulded in low relief and delicately coloured. This was the ware imitated at Doccia in later days, and also, it would seem, at Herend, in Hungary. But perhaps the most characteristic pieces then made at Naples are the little detached figures, generally grotesques, delicately modelled and painted (Pl. xlii.).
In this Capo di Monte porcelain we may note generally the prevalence of extreme rococo forms. The glaze of the white ware has a pleasant warm tone resembling that of some of the Fukien porcelain, which may in part have served as a model.
When the factory was re-established first at Portici and then again at Naples, a very different influence is perceptible. There is a service at Windsor presented by the King of Naples to Georgeiii.in 1787, decorated with ‘peintures Hetrusques,’ that is to say, with reproductions of antiques in the Museo Borbonico. This later ware generally bears as a mark an N surmounted by a crown.
Doccia.—The interest of the factory at Doccia, some five miles to the west of Florence, where majolica and many varieties of porcelain have been made for the last one hundred and seventy years, centres round the Ginori family. The founder of those works, the Marchese Carlo Ginori,[203]who belonged to an old Florentine family, was sent, in 1737, by the Grand Duke on a diplomatic mission to the Emperor Francisi.He had already, at his villa near Sesto, succeeded in making some imitations of Oriental porcelain, and on his return from Vienna he brought back with him the arcanist Carl Wandhelein. With his assistance Ginori was able in a short time to turn out some well modelled statuettes. The paste, however, was not very white or uniform, and the larger pieces are generally disfigured by fissures. To this time belongs probably a large statuette of a crouching Venus at South Kensington. This kind of ware had its inspiration, no doubt, in the ambitious attempts to replace the works of the sculptor with which the Meissen factory was occupied about this time. Ginori was soon after appointed Governor of Leghorn,[204]and he is said to have despatched a vessel to China expressly to bring back the kaolin of that country.
PLATE XLII.1, 2 AND 3—CAPO DI MENTE4—DOCCIA
PLATE XLII.1, 2 AND 3—CAPO DI MENTE4—DOCCIA
PLATE XLII.1, 2 AND 3—CAPO DI MENTE4—DOCCIA
The works at Doccia and the schools and museums attached to them are frequently referred to by our eighteenth century travellers. There appears to have been a period of decline, as was not unnatural, during the Napoleonic wars, but by the early part of the nineteenth century the factory at Doccia had become one of the most important in Europe. On the death of the founder, in 1757, the works had been carried on by his son Lorenzo, and he in his turn was succeeded by Carlo Leopoldo, who introduced a new type of furnace. This remarkable dynasty of noble potters has carried on the Doccia works to the present day.
Beside a large outturn of enamelled fayence and of hard porcelain,ad uso di Francia, a milder or hybrid type of paste has been largely made, and the materials have been obtained from many sources, native and foreign. The dealers’ shops in Italy have been inundated with imitations of the old majolica, and with the help of moulds obtained from the moribund Capo di Monte works, close imitations of that ware have long been made at Doccia. Indeed the bulk of the porcelain decorated with mythological figures in low relief (more especially the larger pieces so often seen in dealers’ shops and in salerooms) has its origin in Tuscany rather than at Naples.
The mark, a star formed of two superimposed triangles, is derived from the arms of the family, but this mark has often been omitted.
In the eighteenth century many kinds of ware were imitated; the plain white porcelain is, however, the most interesting, such as the already mentioned statuettes and the imitations of the Fukien ware, specimens of which were sent by Sir Horace Mann to Walpole in 1760. This kind of ware is whiter and of a more dead aspect than that made at Naples and at Buen Retiro. In the Franks collection are specimens from an interesting series of small medallions withportraits of the grand ducal and other families, in white relief on a grey-blue ground. These were made at Doccia, probably towards the end of the eighteenth century.
Buen Retiro.—During the sixteenth century we have frequent references to the importation of Oriental porcelain into the Peninsula—the white ware of Fukien is said to have been above all prized. In the seventeenth century we find Portuguese travelling merchants selling porcelain at the fair of St. Germain, and we hear that their stalls were visited by people of quality from Paris. (Cf.p. 230.)
But this ware of the Far East has left little or no mark upon the fayence or porcelain made in Spain. In the former, at least, the influence of the nearer Saracenic East has always remained predominant.[205]The porcelain fever that raged at times in the rest of Europe seems to have left Spain untouched until the advent of the half-French, half-Italian king in 1759. Charlesiii., who abandoned his Neapolitan throne in that year to succeed his brother as King of Spain, was on the whole the best of the many descendants of Louisxiv.who ruled in France, Spain, and Italy in the eighteenth century. We have seen that he was an enthusiastic potter, and his first care, even before leaving Naples, was to see to the transhipping to Spain of practically the whole of the staff, to say nothing of the moulds and other appliances in use at the Capo di Monte factory. Don Juan Riaño, in hisHandbook of Spanish Arts, gives the names of nineteen modellers and fourteen painters who sailed for Alicante in a vessel speciallychartered for this purpose. Among these Italian emigrants two names are worthy of mention—Buonicelli—he and his son after him superintended the new works till the end of the century—and Gricci (there were three men of this name among the modellers), the designer of the famous porcelain chamber at Aranjuez.
The new factory, known as La China, was erected in the garden of the Buen Retiro, a palace in the suburbs of Madrid. Here for the next thirty years, that is until the death of Charlesiii.in 1788, supported by a large yearly grant, and surrounded by the strictest secrecy, was made the porcelain destined for the decoration of the royal palaces and for presentation to other courts. Only in the time of Joseph, Napoleon’s brother, and of Ferdinandvii., was the ware from the royal works allowed to come into the market, and this was at a period of decline. The Buen Retiro gardens were the scene of desperate fighting between the English and the French in the year 1812, during which the porcelain works were completely destroyed.
We hear, at the commencement, of quarrels between the Spanish and Italian workmen, and of breakdowns in the kilns. But Charles and his director, Buonicelli, must soon have surmounted the preliminary difficulties, for already, during the years 1763 to 1765 (as we learn from an inscription on one of the slabs), Giuseppe Gricci was occupied in decorating the porcelain chamber, the famousGabinetoof the palace at Aranjuez, which surpassed in magnificence the earlier room of the same description at Portici. The large plaques which surround this chamber are decorated with groups of Japanese figures in high relief, carefully modelled and painted. Between these plaques rise tall looking-glasses brought from the king’s new glass-works at La Granja, and the porcelain frames of these mirrors are elaborately decorated with fruits and flowers. There is another of these porcelain cabinets in the Royal Palace at Madrid;this time the plaques are ornamented with children in high relief. Here and in the other Spanish palaces, at Aranjuez, at La Granja, and at the Escurial, may still be seen vases of porcelain from Buen Retiro, some of them six or seven feet in height. These vases are often set in gilt bronze mountings and filled with branches of porcelain flowers.
Among the specimens of Spanish porcelain that we see in English collections, it is the plain white ware that interests us most. This is of a very beautiful warm tint, and the vases are surrounded byamoriniin full relief among flowers, or again by sea-shells modelled from nature, as in the case of the Capo di Monte ware. But many other things were made—imitations of Wedgwood, for example, white relief on a dull blue ground.
In its last days the factory fell under French influence, and an attempt was made to imitate the hard paste of Sèvres with the aid of native clays. It would seem that some of the paste made at an earlier time was of a hybrid nature, containing magnesia, like that of Vinovo.
The factory was re-established by Ferdinandvii.after his restoration, at the Moncloa, near Madrid, but with little success. Close at hand, at La Florida, near the well-known Paseo, an attempt has been lately made to revive the works. Zuluaga, the famous metal-worker, has interested himself in these new works, but the ware made is of little interest.
The fleur-de-lis of the Bourbons, generally painted in blue under the glaze, is the only mark that need be mentioned; it is probable that this mark was already in use at Naples (Pl. d. 67).
At Alcora, in the province of Valencia, the Conde d’Aranda had established an important factory of artistic fayence as early as the year 1725. Aranda played no small part in the short-lived revival of prosperityin Spain that followed the accession of Charlesiii.In 1764 we find him sending to Dresden for an arcanist, and in 1774 he obtained the services of a French expert, one Martin, from Sèvres. Each in his turn covenanted with the count to make true porcelain, and we are told that he sent specimens of his ware to his friend Voltaire at Ferney. Don Juan Riaño gives a full account of this factory, but there do not seem to be any specimens of Aranda’s wares in English collections that are anything better than a fine fayence.
In the Museo Arqueologico at Madrid there is a large collection of porcelain and fayence from Buen Retiro, La Moncloa, Alcora, and Talavera.
Portugal.—Some hard-paste porcelain was made at Lisbon before the year 1775, and at Vista Alegre, near Oporto, the factory started about 1790 is still carried on. Certain medallions of biscuit porcelain, in the style of Wedgwood, have found their way into the Schreiber and Franks collections. To judge from an inscription on a minute plaque suitable for setting in a ring, in the latter collection, these medallions were made at the Royal Arsenal at Lisbon in 1792.
IN spite of the considerable literature that has sprung up upon the subject, we know little of the early history of English soft-paste porcelain.
We have already spoken of the experiments made by Dr. Dwight in the seventeenth century. Dr. Lister, writing in 1699 (see above,p. 282), shows a remarkable acquaintance with the technical qualities of various kinds of porcelain: he speaks of ‘the inward Substance and Matter of the Pots’ made at Saint-Cloud as the very same as that of the Chinese, ‘hard and fine as Marble, and the self-same grainon this side vitrification. Further, the transparency of the Pots the very same.’ He had expected that at best they ‘might have arrived at the Gomron ware, which is indeed little else but a total vitrification.’[206]The man who wrote this must have been thoroughly acquainted with the physical qualities of porcelain; he must already have made some study of the subject. And yet not only at that time, but for the next forty-five years, there is a total absence of any evidence, documentary or practical, that porcelain was made anywhere in England.[207]
Meantime new porcelain works were springing up in various parts of Germany, and in France the factories of Saint-Cloud and Chantilly had long been at work. It is indeed from a French document that we get our first hint as to the existence of porcelain works in England before the year 1745. In an ‘arrest du Conseil d’État du Roy’ of that year, by which Charles Adam is authorised to establish a porcelain factory at Vincennes, a note of alarm is sounded. ‘A new establishment that has lately been founded in England for the manufacture of porcelain, which appears by the nature of its composition more beautiful than that of Saxony,’ will probably, so the document states, lead to the new English ware replacing that of French origin (Marryat, p. 371).
For one reason or another there appears to have been a great outburst of interest in porcelain about the year 1745. The works at Bow were probably started at that time. There are in existence dated pieces of that year which were almost certainly made at Chelsea, and these were no first efforts. As early as this, some porcelain figures may possibly have been made at Derby,[208]so that we may perhaps take the ten years preceding 1750 as the period during which the industry was obscurely passing through its experimental stage. After this time, those who had been first in the field reaped a good harvest, for during the next decade the china mania was at its height, and afforded much material for the satirical and comic writers of the day.
To sum up the history of English porcelain in the eighteenth century, we may take it that about the year 1740 the first attempts were made to imitate the variouskinds of Oriental and Continental porcelain that were every year coming more and more into use; that by the year 1750 several factories were at work; and finally, that by 1780 the best had already been accomplished, and the decline had already begun.
Taken as a whole, our English porcelain, whether of soft or hard paste, shows little originality. From the point of view of design and decoration we may divide the ware made during the eighteenth century into two schools:—
(a) The Oriental school, the wares principally imitated being—1. The white porcelain of Fukien, with decoration in relief, often of prunus blossom. 2. ‘Blue and white,’ the blue under the glaze—this is often combined with the previous class. 3. The earlier type of Imari, that known at the time as ‘old Japan,’ or ‘partridge and wheatsheaf.’ 4. The somewhat later type of Imari with brocaded pattern, what wenowcall ‘old Japan.’ The enamelled wares of the great revival under Kang-he and his successors, though valued by collectors both here and in France, were less often copied.
(b) The European school, which derived its inspiration from—1. The early wares of Saint-Cloud, and later from those of Vincennes and Sèvres. Speaking generally, the influence of Sèvres became predominant after 1755, and to some extent ousted the earlier Orientalmotifs. 2. Dresden, which gave the type for the statuettes and also for the elaborate painting of flowers and realistic landscapes on plates and dishes. This German influence, favouring a dullish scheme of colour and a ‘tight’ execution, was more apparent at an earlier and again at a later period; during the best time, say from 1755 to 1770, it was eclipsed by that of Sèvres.
It must be remembered that England is the only country where porcelain has been successfully made without royal or princely patronage. The various kilns were here without exception founded as commercialspeculations—they were essentially the outcome of middle-class enterprise. There was, it is true, at one time some question at Chelsea of royal patronage, as represented by the Duke of Cumberland, but this came to nothing. Some interest was taken and some advice given on the artistic side by one or two great noblemen—by the third Duke of Argyll, for instance, an admirer of the ‘Kakiyemon’ decoration—but the capital to start and maintain the works came from the pockets of the more enterprising and businesslike of the designers and decorators themselves, men like Sprimont and Duesbury, assisted by local bankers, merchants, and physicians.
As a result, we find that a great feature in the commercial management, one that was quite peculiar to our island, was formed by the annual sales by auction, advertised beforehand in the local papers. It was by careful search through these advertisements and through the old sale catalogues that the late Mr. Nightingale was able to clear up some at least of the difficulties and misconceptions that have surrounded the history of English porcelain. The too ready acceptance of anecdotes and ‘pleasant stories,’ copied from one writer to another with occasional embellishments, has been the cause of much confusion. These have originated in many cases from the senile gossip of decayed workmen. The same may be said of the disproportionate attention given to marks, to which more care has been given than to a critical discrimination of the differences that distinguish the paste, the glaze, and the decoration of different wares.
How little was known a few years ago about the composition of our English porcelains is shown by the general acceptance of the statement that Spode, about the year 1800, introduced the use of bone-ash. It is now known that nearly fifty years before that time the use of a phosphatic paste was general in England, and, according to Professor Church, in ninety per cent. of thespecimens in our collections bone-ash is an essential constituent. Thus the one original discovery that we can claim for our country was either forgotten or ignored.
Apart from the hard porcelain of Plymouth and Bristol, our English pastes may be divided into three classes. That first used was probably copied as closely as possible from the pastes of Saint-Cloud and Chantilly. It was a mixture of sand from Alum Bay and pipeclay from Dorsetshire, with an amount of glass, in the form of a frit, sufficient to ensure translucency. Before long the sand and clay were replaced in great measure by bone-ash, and we get the ‘natural soft paste’ especially characteristic of English eighteenth century porcelain. Finally, at the beginning of the next century Spode replaced the glassy frit by a mixture of kaolin and china-stone, retaining the bone-ash. A paste of this type has been in use ever since. Thus, in the year 1840, the ordinary commercial porcelain of Staffordshire, which in its origin was a development of the artistic wares of the eighteenth century, was made from Cornish kaolin 31 parts, Cornish china-stone 26 per cent., flint 2·5 per cent., and ‘prepared bones’ 40·5 per cent.[209]The last material is made from the roasted bones of oxen, now largely imported for this purpose from South America. The glaze on the earlier wares was essentially a silicate of lead and potash, compounded from white lead, nitre, and salt. But at present a harder glaze is used for the Staffordshire porcelain: it contains, in addition to the above substances, a considerable quantity of china-stone and china-clay, together with a little borax.
Our English porcelain of the eighteenth century may be divided roughly into five periods:—
1. The early or primitive period, very often characterisedby Chinese, and especially Japanese, schemes of decoration. Oriental wares are closely copied, sometimes perhaps with the object of deception. The paste, containing no bone-ash, is soft and very waxy in appearance. Much of the ground is left unpainted, and there is no gilding. There is a great uncertainty as to the place of manufacture of many of these early pieces.
2. The fine period—approximately 1755 to 1768—especially associated with the name of Sprimont, at Chelsea. The influence of the contemporary production at Sèvres is very marked.
3. The Duesbury period, 1768 to 1786. Simple classical forms are predominant at Chelsea and Derby. The rich decoration previously in use at Chelsea is continued at Worcester, but applied to pieces of simpler outline, the vases often copying Chinese forms.
4. The early commercial period. The business firms at Derby and Worcester almost monopolise the market. Somewhat later the factories in the Severn valley form a link with the next period.
5. The Staffordshire commercial period, equally commercial and essentially eclectic. Everything is copied, and there is a constant tendency to hark back to older types.
It is possible that some such historical arrangement, combined with a division according to types of decoration, might be made the basis of an account of English porcelain; but it will be a safer course to follow the usual topographical division, treating the different factories more or less in the order of the date of their foundation.
Chelsea.—The year 1745 is the earliest date to which any piece of Chelsea ware can with certainty be assigned. The factory ceased to exist as an independent seat of manufacture before 1770. In this short interval there were apparently some years duringwhich very little china was made. It is thus essentially an early ware, and Horace Walpole in his catalogue already speaks of ‘old Chelsea.’
We know absolutely nothing about the origin of the works. The Duke of Buckingham, in the time of Charlesii., is said to have been interested in some glass-works in this neighbourhood, and to have brought over workmen from Venice. The duke’s glass-houses were, however, more probably at Lambeth. At any rate, at that time, the ‘cones,’ as the glass-houses were called, appear to have been regarded as places suitable equally for the making of glass or the firing of pottery—so at least I glean from the terms of an advertisement in which some of these ‘cones’ are offered for sale. The origin of the well-known anchor-mark of Chelsea has been sought in Venice, but, as far as porcelain is concerned, it was probably in use at Chelsea at an earlier date than in the latter town.
Our knowledge of the existence of a factory at Chelsea before 1749 rests on the survival of two little cream-jugs of white ware moulded in the so-called ‘goat and bee’ pattern. Like some other pieces to which an early date may be assigned, these little jugs bear as a mark a rough triangle scratched in the paste (Pl. e. 68), but they stand alone in the fact that beneath the triangle has been added,before baking, in a scrawly hand, ‘Chelsea, 1745.’[210]Thanks to them we are able, upon material evidence, to put back the origin of English porcelain for five years at least.[211]
In the year 1747, we are told in theLondon Tradesman, that at a house at Greenwich, and at another at Chelsea,the undertakers had been for some time tryingto imitate the porcelain of China and Dresden, and in the same year a number of Staffordshire potters migrated to London to find work in the Chelsea factory (Shaw’sRise and Progress of the Staffordshire Potteries). In a London paper of December 1749 there is an advertisement of the sale of a freehold messuage in ‘Great China Row, Chelsea.’ This was no mere misprint—China for Cheyne—(the two words were pronounced alike at that time), for we come across the same spelling in more than one instance at a later date.[212]There is a real confusion of the two names, arising probably from the interest taken in the porcelain factory lately established in the neighbourhood; and this very confusion is good evidence of the extent to which the china question was occupying people’s minds at the time.
Two months later, in January 1750, we hear for the first time of Mr. Charles Gouyn, but he is already, at that date, thelateproprietor and chief manager of the ‘Chelsea House.’ Of this Gouyn, presumably the founder of the works, we know nothing. He was probably of French or Belgian origin.[213]Of Gouyn’s successor, Nicholas Sprimont, we know something more. Like his contemporary Duplessis, at Sèvres, he was a silversmith, working at one time in Soho. Sprimont entered his name at Goldsmith Hall in 1742, and his mark is found on a pair of silver dishes ornamented with shells and corals now at Windsor.
For twenty years (1749-69) the factory at Chelsea was dependent upon Sprimont’s efforts. He wasfinancier, director, and designer. When he was ill the kilns were not lighted. When finally, in 1764, he had to go in search of health to ‘the German Spau,’ the stock and plant were offered for sale. At an early period—soon after 1753, it would seem, but possibly somewhat later—he appealed to the Government against the connivance of the custom-house officials at the smuggling in of Dresden china. In this ‘Case of the Undertaker of the Chelsea Manufacture of Porcelain,’ Sprimont points out that ‘as the law stands, painted Earthenware[214]other than that from India is not enterable at the Custom House, otherwise than for private use.’ ‘The regulation,’ says Sprimont, ‘is, however, evaded, especially by a certain foreign minister whose official residence has become a warehouse for this commerce. What chance had a private person in a match with a crowned head?’
From this ‘Case’ we learn that no porcelain or other ware, apart from the importations of the East India Company, was allowed to enter the country, but that an exception was made in the case of plain white ware suitable for subsequent decoration in England.[215]Private individuals, however, might import a certain amount of European porcelain for their own use on payment of a small duty. ‘This concession,’ says Sprimont, ‘was greatly abused.’ Who, however, is the ‘crowned head’ who is so anxious to push the sale of his own goods in the English market? The Elector of Saxony, it is usually said; but if we could put the date of the ‘undertaker’s case’ a few years later, between 1759 and 1761 (there are, I allow, some difficulties in so doing), this charge would fit in well withthe efforts of Frederick the Great to convert the stock of porcelain he found at Meissen into the much-needed cash.[216]
The factory at Chelsea was situated beyond the west extremity of the original Cheyne Row, just before you come to the old church. The works extended for some distance along the west side of Lawrence Street. Nothing is left of them now, but during some excavations made near at hand, in 1843, many fragments of porcelain were found. These pieces belong, it would seem, to an early period of the manufacture.
We have already pointed out that neither the Chelsea works, nor indeed any other English porcelain factory, at any time received direct financial support either from the royal family or from the Government. Sir Everard Fawkner, however, secretary to the Duke of Cumberland, was a collector of china, and took some interest in the works. It was through his influence, perhaps, that the ‘butcher of Culloden’ appears at one time to have been brought, in some way, into connection with the Chelsea factory.[217]Again, soon after his accession, the young King Georgeiii.sent to the Duke of Mecklenburg a complete service of Chelsea porcelain which cost £1200. This is, I think, our first knowninstance in England of royal patronage, even in this restricted sense.
In common with the other porcelain made at the time, the decoration, and even the shapes, of much of the early ware of Chelsea were derived from Oriental models. Of these Eastern types, the ‘wheatsheaf and partridge’ (more properly quail) was most in favour. The Chelsea imitations of the old Japanese ware are distinguished by the abundant use of a heavy iron-red enamel. There are several specimens of this ware at South Kensington, but I would call attention, above all, to a very curiouscompotierin the Jermyn Street collection.[218]This dish has a brown rim, and round the margin a quaint decoration of foxes amid clusters of red grapes. This is a very old Chinesemotif, only we should have squirrels in place of foxes. But the Chelsea ‘Kakiyemon’ never equalled that of Chantilly, or perhaps even the copies made at Bow. On the other hand, the Chelsea plates made in imitation of the brocaded ‘old Japan’ are unsurpassed among European wares (Pl. xlv). Equally early, perhaps, are the plates and dishes with decorations of flowers and birds on a large scale sprawling over the surface. In these last examples the colours are poor and heavy, and the general execution very rough. Many of the plain white pieces also belong to this early period.[219]
In the year 1754 Sprimont introduced the system of periodic sales by auction;[220]and we can in some measure trace the progress of the manufacture in theadvertisements and in the rare catalogues that have been preserved. Thus in the advertisement of the first sale of 1754 we already find mention of groups of figures. The next sale, a few months later, was made up of ‘the entire Stock ofPorcelain toys... Snuff-boxes, Smelling-Bottles, Etwees, and Trinkets for Watches (mounted in Gold and unmounted) in various beautiful Shapes of an elegant Design and curiously painted in Enamel.’ There was also in this sale a large parcel of porcelain hafts for table and dessert knives and forks.
This is the first mention that we have of these fascinating little ‘toys and trinkets.’ They often bear inscriptions in a somewhat lame French, which we might have looked for rather on the rival wares of ‘Stratford-atte-Bowe’ than at a factory where we have reason to believe more than one Frenchman was employed. Of these toys a representative collection was made by Lady Charlotte Schreiber, and there are many charming specimens in the British Museum. We must remember that about this time, and perhaps earlier (1740-50), Saint-Cloud and, above all, Mennecy, were turning out a similar class of objects.
The Chelsea sale of 1756 is the earliest of which a catalogue has been preserved, and in it we find the first mention of the ‘mazareen’ blue, a colour after this time largely used as a ground for the more elaborate vases, both at Chelsea and at other English factories. The rage for porcelain was then at its height, and we see traces of this in the advertisements of the time; but in 1757 Sprimont fell ill, and little was made at Chelsea. In 1759 the collection of Chelsea porcelain made by the already-mentioned Sir Everard Fawkner, lately deceased, was sold by auction. The sale occupied several days, and in the advertisement we come across the earliest reference to the use of greenen camaïeu—‘a tea and coffee equipage, exquisitely painted in green landscapes.’
It was about this time, Professor Church thinks, that the artificial frit-paste was replaced at Chelsea by one containing a large quantity of bone-ash (as much as fifty per cent. in some cases). The earlier material of the French type must have been very difficult to work, and it softened so readily in the kiln that many specimens were spoiled in the firing. It had, however, a certain mellow charm given by its translucency and by the close unison of paste and glaze, that was never equalled in the later material.
Indeed the high-water mark of the Chelsea factory was reached in the years that succeeded Sprimont’s first illness of 1757. It was then that the use of gilding became more general.[221]The gold was laid on by means of an amalgam, the mercury being expelled by the heat of the muffle. The result, after burnishing, was to give a brilliant surface of pure gold unlike the solid chiselled lines and bands of dullish surface seen on Sèvres china. But from an artistic point of view this result is not very satisfactory—indeed, nothing has helped more to give a certain garish and vulgar air to much of the English porcelain made at this time.
In the notice of the spring sale of 1760, Sprimont sings the praises of ‘a few pieces of some new colours that have been found this year at a very large expense, incredible labour and close application.’ Among these new colours we must probably reckon the beautiful claret or deep purplish crimson, the one colour of our English porcelain that has never been surpassed or even equalled on the Continent. It differs from the contemporaryrose Pompadournot only by the greater intensity of its hue, but by being a transparent colour. This claret is, of course, derived from the purple of Cassius, and the peculiar tint is said to be due to the addition to the gold of a small amount of silver. Among the othercolours introduced at this time was probably a blue made in imitation of the famous turquoise of Sèvres. This blue is very rare as a ground colour at Chelsea, and the tint is generally greenish and opaque. It is found at its best on a large vase in the British Museum with open-work cover and handles. In a diluted form the turquoise blue is often found as a wash upon the drapery of statuettes. Therose Pompadourof Sèvres was also imitated at a later date, but not very successfully.
This is the time of the more ambitious vases, with a monochrome ground generally of deep blue and reserved panels painted with pastoral or mythological subjects, or with fantastic ‘exotic’ birds and flowers. The painting, even in the finest examples, never attained the delicacy of the Sèvres prototype, and it is often lamentably inefficient, but at the same time this very rudeness of execution sometimes adds to the decorative effect of theensemble. These vases are above all distinguished by the strangely contorted shapes that Sprimont so loved to give to the handles, covers, and feet. All these points are well illustrated in the vases (made in the years 1762 and 1763) that Dr. Garnier gave to the Foundling Hospital and to the British Museum. The painting on these specimens is particularly bad and heavy. The mythological subjects, in the style of Boucher, on the famousgarniturewith claret ground, now belonging to Lord Burton, show a greater delicacy—in execution at least. This exaggerated rococo treatment—in the extreme forms even the bilateral symmetry is abandoned—was doubtless suggested by the forms of the ormolu mountings (for handles and feet especially) then much in vogue.[222]
To a somewhat earlier date belong the moulded reproductions of animals, vegetables, and fruit so well represented in the Schreiber collection. In the case of some of the models of birds, the plumage is admirably reproduced, and in a sufficiently bold style. Notice especially some covered dishes in the form of partridges and doves. There was a sale of these ‘Chelsea Tureens in the shape of hen and chickens, swans, rabbits, carp, etc.,’ in 1756.
How brilliant and decorative in general effect was some of the ware made by Sprimont in his later days may be well seen in the collection presented to South Kensington by Miss Emily Thomson. It consists chiefly of plates and cups with grounds of deep Mazarin blue, and more especially of the rich claret or maroon of Chelsea (Pl. xliii.). Technically, however, many of these pieces are very imperfect—the thick glaze accumulated in pools and fissured by cracks, the painting rude—and yet for all this a plate of this ware which has found its way by some accident into an adjacent case, full of the finest Sèvres of the best period, shines out from its surroundings like a jewel.
The single figures and groups are mentioned in the earliest advertisements—some of the plain white statuettes date back probably to the first days of the works. Here the English potters, in applying the soft paste covered with a thick, brilliant glaze to such a purpose, were breaking fresh ground. The crispness and the finish of the Dresden statuettes they could never attain to with these materials. The English figures and groups, whether made at Chelsea or elsewhere, are generally wanting in sharpness and precision of outline, a consequence in great measure of the thick-flowing glaze. In the kiln they had to be supported by an elaborate system of struts to prevent the fusible material from collapsing, and this alone must have hampered the modeller in the selection of the design. Many of these