found in the Magliabechian Library at Florence which states that the paste was composed of 24 parts of sand, 16 of a glass (powdered rock crystal 10 and soda 8), and 12 parts white earth of Faenza. To 12 parts of this mixture 3 parts of the kaolinic clay of Vicenza were to be added, and the pieces glazed with a lead glaze, or sometimes with the tin-enamel of the Italian faience maker. We are in the presence, therefore, of a material unlike Chinese porcelain in every respect, the Florentine porcelain being the first of a long line of European porcelains the artistic qualities of which were obtained by mixing a large quantity of glass with a small quantity of clay, so that they may almost be regarded as a species of glazed and painted glass. The technical methods used in their manufacture and decoration, however, were those of the potter and not of the glass maker.
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| Paris Potters’ marks. |
With the death of Francesco de’ Medici in 1587 it seems probable that this wonderful innovation came to an untimely end, and we hear no more of porcelain in Italy for more than a century. During this century (1587–1687) there can be no doubt that efforts were made all over Europe to discover the secret of porcelain manufacture; but the first reliable date we can point to is 1673, when Louis Poterat, a faience maker of Rouen, obtained a privilege from the French king for the manufacture of porcelain in that town. The Rouen porcelain in turn ceased with the death of Poterat in 1696. Authentic specimens are extant in the shape of salt-cellars, mustard pots and some few vases, the latter of considerable size. The pieces are usually decorated in blue with patterns in the Rouen style and were evidently painted by an expert faience painter. In composition, the porcelain of Rouen, like that of Florence, was of the artificial or glassy type, and shortly afterwards a similar ware made its appearance at the faience works of St Cloud near Paris, and at various works in the city of Paris. Well-known pieces, bearing the marks here shown, formerly supposed to be the earliest specimens of French porcelain and the work of Poterat at Rouen, are probably experimental pieces made in Paris after the date of Poterat’s discovery, as they differ in important particulars from his ware.
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| St Cloud Potters’ marks. |
Once firmly established in France, this manufacture, under the patronage of the French court or of some great French noble, rapidly assumed a position of importance. The works at St Cloud received letters-patent from Louis XIV. in 1696, and the manufacture was continued there down to 1773. The appearance of the St Cloud porcelain is very characteristic, for though the paste has a yellowish tinge it is of fine quality with a clear and brilliant glaze. The first efforts appear to have consisted in frank imitations of the much-prized Oriental wares, and white pieces decorated only with branches of flowering plum in relief, or pieces modelled with imbricated or scale pattern or with delicate flutings, were made. The earliest colour decoration was naturally in under-glaze blue, and while quasi-oriental designs were largely used, the commonest feature is the prevalence of painted borders like those used on the faience of Rouen and St Cloud. At a later date decoration in over-glaze colours and gilding was also employed, and though the ware never reached to such a pitch of excellence as that of the Royal Manufactory at Sèvres, the St Cloud porcelain is one of the most distinctive French porcelains of the 18th century.
German Porcelains.—While the glassy porcelains of France were being developed at St Cloud, success of a more permanent order was reached in Germany. Augustus the Strong, elector of Saxony (1670–1733), had formed an extensive collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelains, still to be seen in the Dresden Museum, and he had established experimental pottery works, bringing skilled potters from Holland and elsewhere. His chief investigators appear to have been Tschirnhaus and Böttger, both alchemists, and it was the glory of the latter to be the first European to produce a porcelain like the Chinese, both in the nature of its materials, and in the appearance of its paste and glaze. It may be surmised that Böttger was guided toward this momentous discovery by information brought from China, though such an idea is always stoutly denied by German authorities, who, with pardonable pride, claim that Böttger at the age of twenty-four succeeded where all other European experimenters had failed. He was certainly working at the problems offered by the exotic wares of China, for his first production was an extremely hard redstone-ware—often erroneously called “Böttger’s red porcelain”—resembling the Chinese “boccaros” or red teapots of the Yi-hsing potteries. He had been anticipated in this direction by Dwight of Fulham, but the red pottery of Böttger was so intensely fired that it became dense enough to be cut and polished by the lapidary as if it were a piece of jasper or carnelian. It was first offered for sale at the Leipzig fair of 1710, and for many years it enjoyed great popularity, as well as the undesirable honour of wide imitation. At the same time (1710) Böttger exhibited a few crude specimens of greyish-white porcelain. Imperfect pieces were on sale in 1713, and by 1716 its manufacture was definitely established, though the pieces were still far from perfect. Böttger died in 1719, having had the rare fortune, in his short and eventful life, to establish in Europe the manufacture of true porcelain.
The life of Böttger reads like a page of romance, and the story of the subsequent development of porcelain manufacture throughout the German empire is hardly less romantic. When the importance of Böttger’s discovery was recognized, he and his workmen were removed from Dresden to the Albrechtsburg, a fortress situated at Meissen some 16 m. away, so that the manufacture could be conducted with the greatest secrecy. All concerned were practically state prisoners, and this extreme rigour doubtless defeated the end in view, for workmen escaped from time to time, and professing, more or less truthfully, a knowledge of the manufacture, found patrons among the German princes all eager to gain reputation as experimenters in the new art of porcelain. Some of these wandering “Arcanists,” like Ringler and Hunger, and the men who learnt from them, travelled all over the empire, and the following list of dates will show how porcelain factories sprang up from the parent factory at Meissen:—
| Meissen | 1710 | St Petersburg | 1744 |
| Vienna | 1718 | Berlin | 1750 |
| Ansbach | 1718 | Nymphenburg | 1758 |
| Bayreuth | 1720 | Ludwigsburg | 1758 |
Meissen.—Although the factory which was founded at Meissen as a result of Böttger’s discovery remained on its old site until 1863, the porcelain made there has been commonly known as Dresden porcelain; probably because Dresden was the seat of the Saxon court, and the enterprise was conducted at the expense of the electors of Saxony. So jealously were the secrets of this factory guarded that when Napoleon, the master of Europe, sent Brongniart to investigate the methods in use at Meissen in 1812, the elector of Saxony had to release Steinauer, the director, from his oath of secrecy before he would explain the processes. Meissen porcelain, therefore, affords us the best example by which we may follow the changes of fashion and taste that governed the styles of porcelain decoration in Europe during the 18th century. The early Meissen porcelain was made from the kaolin found at Aue, near Schneeberg, and while there is no mention of any other material, we may be sure that clay and felspathic rock, analogous to the Chinese kaolin and petuntse, were obtained from the same quarries, and were used together. Until after the death of Böttger in 1719 it cannot be said that the venture was more than a succès d’estime. The specimens preserved in the Dresden Museum show that the pieces were generally thick in substance and clumsy in shape, being often made from the moulds that had been designed for Böttger’s red-stoneware. Naturally enough these early examples were inspired by Chinese models, both in shape and decoration. As at St Cloud, white pieces with modelled decoration were common. Unlike the contemporary French glassy porcelains, the decorations in under-glaze blue were very imperfect, the
