Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/663

Rh GERMAN, ETC.] POTTERY 639 fact that all the colours alter in the kiln, the unfired pigments often bearing no resemblance to their fired state. Thus an ela borately painted and gilt Sevres vase passes through six separate firings, and often a seventh when it needs final retouching. The porcelain a pale tcndre is now made in small quantities at Sevres. Its materials have been described above. In most respects it goes through the same processes as the pate durc, but the gold is applied after the painting, as it requires a less degree of heat to fix it on the more fusible glaze used for pate tendre. irks. Modern Sevres porcelain has two marks first, the mark of the paste or undecorated vase, painted in green ; second, a mark in red or gold to show that it has been painted at Sevres. Slightly defective pieces in the white glazed state are sometimes sold and decorated elsewhere. In this case the green mark is cancelled by the cut of a lapidary s wheel before it leaves the manufactory, wer M. Brongniart, in his Arts Ceramiqws, has given a complete set )- of plates, showing all the processes, the machinery, and the kilns ses. used at Sevres in his time, that is, from 1800 to 1847. Other processes are now practised. One is for making very thin cups and saucers, like Eastern &quot;egg-shell china,&quot; which are formed by merely rinsing out a plaster mould with fluid paste, when sufficient of the paste to make the thin walls of the cup adheres to the absorbent mould ; and thus porcelain is made much thinner than it could be by use of the wheel and lathe. Another recent invention is of great importance in the forming of large vases with bodies thin in proportion to their size. Such would be liable to collapse from their own weight while the paste was soft. To prevent this, the vase is set in an air-tight chamber, its mouth being carefully closed, and the air in the chamber round it is exhausted, so that the soft vase is kept in shape by the expansive pressure of the air within it. The converse method is also used in some cases, by compressed air being forced into the vase. When the paste is sufficiently dry all fear of failure from this cause is over. In this way vases as much as 12 feet in height have been successfully made and fired. In addition to porcelain shaped and painted after the 18th- century fashions, and the new pate sur pdte process, the present manufactory produces a great deal of fine porcelain copied exactly from the fanciful and elaborate wares of China and Japan, such as the delicate double cups and vases, with outer shells of minute open work pierced through, and many other varieties requiring great technical skill and patience. Unhappily the old faults and misdirected aims still prevent the laboured products of this great factory from having much real artistic value, or even strong decora tive effect. The paintings on the porcelain are still pictures like miniatures on ivory, and the treatment and forms of the most elaborate vases are not such as would arise from a natural and rational treatment of plastic clay. The ingenious resources of modern chemistry have produced pigments of countless variety of tint, but they are mostly over-gaudy and harsh in combination ; and the modern habit, not peculiar to Sevres, of applying paintings over the glaze, wilfully rejects the special soft richness of effect which a vitreous coating gives to the pigments under it. Literature. On French porcelain, consult Jacquemart, Histoire de la Ceram- . iqtie, 1873 ; Davillier, Les Porcelaines de Sevres, 1870. and Les Faiences et Porcelaines &amp;lt;!e Moustiers, &c. , 1863; Jacquemart and Le Blant, Histoire de la Porcelaine, 1861-6:! ; Lejeal, llecherches sur la Porcelaine de Valenciennes, 18(58 ; Milet, L ln- vention de la Porcelaine a Rouen, 1867 ; Guide du Visiteur, Sevres, 1874 ; Cool, Peinture stir Porcelaine, 1866 ; Bastenaire-Daudenart, L Art de fabriquer la Porcelaine, 1827. See also the general list of works on ceramic art. German and Austrian. The porcelain of Germany was, from the first, composed of a hard natural paste, a true kaolinic clay. Its success ful production was the result of a single, almost accidental, act of discovery, and not, like that of the French, of a long series of experiments with different materials, ending in the invention of a highly artificial imitation of true porcelain. itger. In the year 1700 a young chemist, or rather alchemist, of great ability, called Frederick Bottger (1682-1719), a native of Saxony, fled to Dresden under the accusation of prac tising magical arts and searching for the &quot;philosopher s stone.&quot; He was there taken under the protection of Augustus II., elector of Saxony, who employed him to make experiments, at first connected with medical chemistry and afterwards with the composition of pastes and clays for ceramic ware. From 1701 he worked for his royal patron, partly at Dresden and partly at the castle of Meissen, carefully guarded, and kept in seclusion almost like a prisoner, in order that his discoveries might remain secret, and also to prevent his leaving the country. For nine years Bottger only produced stoneware, though of a finer and harder quality than had hitherto been made (see pp. 630-31); but in 1710 he seems to have been in some way set on the track of the secret of porcelain manu facture. His first attempts were unsuccessful : the paste is grey and defective, and there is little or no glaze. So far no real progress had been made towards the discovery of true porcelain. But in 1710 a lucky accident, com bined with the young chemist s ready powers of observa tion, revealed the true nature of the required paste. Having noticed the unusual weight of some new hair- powder with which his wig was dressed, he inquired what it was made of, and, finding that it was a finely-powdered white clay from Aue, near Schneeberg in Saxony, he pro cured some of the clay. He made vessels of it and fired them, and found that he had discovered the material of true hard porcelain, like that froin China and Japan. When Augustus II. learned the importance of the dis covery he established the porcelain manufactory at Meissen with Bottger as its director. This establishment, 5 miles from Dresden, was more like a prison than a factory, being surrounded by high walls and shut in by port cullises : none except workmen were ever admitted, and they were sworn to secrecy under pain of penal servitude for life. The kaolin from Aue was dug out, packed in sealed bags, and brought to Meissen with every care pos sible to avoid betraying the secret of its importance ; no possible precaution was omitted, and yet, in one case at least, all attemps to keep the monopoly were in vain (see below, &quot; Vienna porcelain &quot;). The earliest productions of the Meissen (Dresden) porce- lain -works are copies from the Chinese and Japanese, Some are plain white, with flowers or fruit in low relief ; others have painted under-glaze in blues only, like the cele- brated blue and white china of Nanking. The first pieces painted with other colours are imitations of old Japanese china in green and red with enrichments in gold. Bottger died in 1719, and was succeeded in his directorship by George Horoldt, who introduced certain improvements in the processes of the manufacture, and increased the quan tity of its annual production. In his time Chinese designs were still copied, mostly very ugly figure-subjects on white panels, the rest of the vase being coloured yellow, green, or grey, and decorated with elaborate gilt scroll-work in the worst possible taste. After about 1725 the Eastern style of design was superseded by ela borate miniature paint ings of flowers and in sects, or copies from Dutch and Flemish painters. All notion of true ceramic decoration was gone, and the porce lain was only regarded as a ground on which to paint an imitation of an oil - painting. Another style of decor ation soon came into fashion : china was de corated in relief with the &quot;honeycomb&quot; or &quot; may-flower &quot; pattern. FIG. 70. Dresden vase, pAte (Jure ; may- T ii. i * i A I flower pattern in relief, coloured blue In the latter kind (see andgold _ (So uth Kensington Museum.) fig. 70) the vessel is closely studded with blossoms of the may, moulded in a realistic way, with thin crisp edges, and then coloured and gilded, very laborious to execute, and extremely disagree- Decora tions of