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Title: Chats on Royal Copenhagen Porcelain

Author: Arthur Hayden

Release date: March 1, 2015 [eBook #48391]
                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHATS ON ROYAL COPENHAGEN PORCELAIN ***

BOOKS FOR COLLECTORS

_With Frontispieces and many Illustrations_

_Large Crown 8vo, cloth._


  CHATS ON ENGLISH CHINA.
      By ARTHUR HAYDEN.

  CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE.
      By ARTHUR HAYDEN.

  CHATS ON OLD PRINTS.
    (How to collect and value Old Engravings.)
      By ARTHUR HAYDEN.

  CHATS ON COSTUME.
      By G. WOOLLISCROFT RHEAD.

  CHATS ON OLD LACE AND NEEDLEWORK.
      By E. L. LOWES.

  CHATS ON ORIENTAL CHINA.
      By J. F. BLACKER.

  CHATS ON OLD MINIATURES.
      By J. J. FOSTER, F.S.A.

  CHATS ON ENGLISH EARTHENWARE.
    (Companion volume to "Chats on English China.")
      By ARTHUR HAYDEN.

  CHATS ON AUTOGRAPHS.
      By A. M. BROADLEY.

  CHATS ON PEWTER.
      By H. J. L. J. MASSÉ, M.A.

  CHATS ON POSTAGE STAMPS.
      By FRED. J MELVILLE.

  CHATS ON OLD JEWELLERY AND TRINKETS.
      By MACIVER PERCIVAL.

  CHATS ON COTTAGE AND FARMHOUSE FURNITURE.
    (Companion volume to "Chats on Old Furniture.")
      By ARTHUR HAYDEN.

  CHATS ON OLD COINS.
      By FRED. W. BURGESS.

  CHATS ON OLD COPPER AND BRASS.
      By FRED. W. BURGESS.

  CHATS ON HOUSEHOLD CURIOS.
      By FRED. W. BURGESS.

  CHATS ON OLD SILVER.
      By ARTHUR HAYDEN.

  CHATS ON JAPANESE PRINTS.
      By ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE.

  CHATS ON MILITARY CURIOS.
      By STANLEY C. JOHNSON.

  CHATS ON OLD CLOCKS.
      By ARTHUR HAYDEN.


LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD.

NEW YORK: F. A. STOKES COMPANY.




CHATS ON ROYAL
COPENHAGEN
PORCELAIN

[Illustration: OLD COPENHAGEN FIGURE GROUP.

Lady and gentleman in contemporary costume.

      _Frontispiece._]




CHATS ON
ROYAL COPENHAGEN
PORCELAIN


BY
ARTHUR HAYDEN

KNIGHT OF THE DANNEBROG

AUTHOR OF
"CHATS ON ENGLISH CHINA," "CHATS ON OLD PRINTS," ETC.


WITH FRONTISPIECE AND 56 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

TOGETHER WITH

ILLUSTRATED TABLES OF MARKS


LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.
ADELPHI TERRACE




_First published in 1918_


(_All rights reserved_)




TO

WILLIAM PETERSEN, Esq.

AS A TOKEN OF APPRECIATION OF HIS
PATRIOTISM AND GENEROSITY
IN FURTHERING THE INTERESTS OF ART
AND STIMULATING ANGLO-DANISH FRIENDSHIP.




PREFACE


"A good wine needs no bush" is an old English proverb, and this
is essentially true in regard to the art of the Royal Copenhagen
Porcelain Factory. The late M. Louis Solon, in preparing his colossal
bibliographic work on _Ceramic Literature_, called my attention to the
curious fact that a small pamphlet (some four and a half by five inches
square, of fourteen pages) written by me originally for the _Artist_
magazine in 1902, and reprinted as a guide to the Royal Copenhagen
porcelain exhibit at the Wolverhampton Exhibition in 1902, was marked
"rare" and being sold to collectors for five shillings. M. Solon, with
his usual perspicacity, added: "It looks as though, in its course from
East to West, ceramic painting has deserted its old home to take refuge
in the North. _C'est du Nord aujourd'hui que nous vient la lumière!_"

In 1911, _Royal Copenhagen Porcelain: Its History and Development from
the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day_ was issued by my publisher,
who in bringing out this sumptuous monograph fell under the spell of
the beauty of Copenhagen art. That volume appealed to connoisseurs and
collectors and was welcomed both here, on the Continent, and in America.

It has been thought desirable, in view of the limited circulation of
that volume, to issue a popular edition, which is here presented in a
slightly abridged form with none of the essentials omitted. Many of the
illustrations have not found their way into this gallery. But a brave
array of pictures is given to convey to the general reader, and to
those who have not perused the larger volume, the chief characteristics
of Royal Copenhagen porcelain, and indicate reasons why this factory is
now regarded as the leading factory in Europe.

How many of the great factories of the world can claim two great epochs
in their history? But Copenhagen can do this. The first is the Müller
period (overglaze decoration), when the factory assumed its well-known
mark, in 1775, of the three blue lines indicating the three waterways
of Denmark--the Sound and the Great and Little Belts. The second great
period, the Modern Renaissance (underglaze decoration), practically
commenced in 1885.

The porcelain of this factory has long been held in high esteem.
Admiral Nelson in 1801, when with the British fleet outside Copenhagen,
wrote to Lady Hamilton, "I was in hopes to have got off some Copenhagen
china to have sent you"; and later, "As I know you have a valuable
collection of china, I send you some of the Copenhagen manufacture."
The bowl made at the royal factory in memory of the brave Danes who
fell in the battle of Copenhagen is herein illustrated.

The _Encyclopædia Britannica_ (11th Edition), 1911 (article on
_Ceramics_), awards a high place to the Royal Copenhagen Factory, "the
productions of which are not only famous all over the world, but have
set a new style in porcelain decoration which is being followed at most
of the continental factories."

At the present time museums and private collectors in this country and
in various parts of the world are acquiring Royal Copenhagen porcelain
on account of its artistic character.

Ordinary collectors of porcelain have always been desirous of
selecting a subject which has not been exploited. The Worcester vase
which to-day brings two thousand guineas at Christie's was once bought
when it was new for as many shillings by some person who recognized its
beauty. But in regard to old factories, most of the histories have been
written to extol their work when the factory had closed down for ever.
The lack of contemporary records of English porcelain is particularly
noticeable. It is as though the factories attempted to hide their
personalities, as indeed they did disguise their productions by trade
signs only decipherable by the indefatigable zeal of later generations.
They assumed pseudo-Chinese marks or adopted the crossed L's of Sèvres
and the crossed swords of Meissen, to the confusion of collectors a
hundred years afterwards. It is therefore with no misgiving that in
the present volume modernity receives due consideration. National
recognition for the artist potter comes, alas! often too late.

In passing, we may add that there are some wonderful productions being
made in England to-day, especially in earthenware, and those who are
buying wisely are laying down wine for posterity.

I have to offer my renewed thanks to the various museum authorities,
mainly in Scandinavia, and to private collectors and friends who
were duly acknowledged in my larger volume as being instrumental in
affording me access to data on a new subject.

In that work, although the omission was corrected in the German edition
published at Leipsic in 1912, various notes were embodied and remain in
the present volume, which were supplied to me by correspondents without
any knowledge on my part that they were based on the work of Professor
Nyrop of Copenhagen, who has made assiduous research into the history
of the old Copenhagen factory, and to whom, therefore, a tribute is in
courteous acknowledgment obviously due.

A new chapter has been added to this volume dealing with Copenhagen
Art Faience, the character of which ware has claimed recognition from
competent critics throughout Europe and in America as having brought a
new note into ceramic art.

  ARTHUR HAYDEN.




CONTENTS


        PAGE

  PREFACE      9

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS      15

  CHAPTER

  I.  THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE COPENHAGEN FACTORY      19
      THE FOURNIER PERIOD. SOFT PASTE PORCELAIN (1760-1766)

  II. FRANTZ HEINRICH MÜLLER (1773-1801)      41
      QUEEN JULIANE MARIE PERIOD (PART I, 1775-1780)

  III. FRANTZ HEINRICH MÜLLER (1773-1801)--_continued_      73
      QUEEN JULIANE MARIE PERIOD (PART II, 1780-1796)

  IV. FIGURE SUBJECTS AND GROUPS (1780-1820)      111

  V. THE _FLORA DANICA_ SERVICE (1790-1802)      137
      MADE FOR CATHERINE II, EMPRESS OF RUSSIA

  VI. EARLY BLUE-AND-WHITE UNDERGLAZE PAINTED      157

  VII. THE SUCCESSORS OF MÜLLER (1820-1880)      177
      THE DECADENCE

  VIII. THE MODERN RENAISSANCE      199

  IX. FIGURE SUBJECTS AND GROUPS--RENAISSANCE PERIOD      263

  X. CRYSTALLINE GLAZES      289

  XI. COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE      307

  XII. THE FACTORY TO-DAY      333

  INDEX      347




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


  LADY AND GENTLEMAN DANCING. OLD COPENHAGEN FIGURE GROUP
        _Frontispiece_

        PAGE

  CHAPTER I.--EARLY HISTORY OF THE COPENHAGEN FACTORY.
    Groups. Fournier Period (1760-1766). Soft-paste Porcelain      25
    Vase. Fournier Period (1760-1766). Soft-paste Porcelain      33

  CHAPTER II.--FRANTZ HEINRICH MÜLLER (Part I, 1775-1780).
    Portrait of Frantz Heinrich Müller      41
    Vase with medallion portrait of Queen Juliane Marie      45
    Vase with medallion portrait of Crown Prince Frederik      49
    Tea and Coffee Service      53
    Saucer. Eagle and Lamb      57
    Saucer. Water-god      61
    Coffee Cups. Rose and spray of flowers: Group of cavalry      65
    Cup with Frantz Heinrich Müller in his Laboratory       69

  CHAPTER III.--FRANTZ HEINRICH MÜLLER (Part II, 1780-1796).
    Sucrier with Cover and Cup      81
    Pastille Burner and Cover      89
    Octagonal Dish. Man with Hound      93
    Tray with oval panel      97

  CHAPTER IV.--FIGURE SUBJECTS AND GROUPS (1780-1820).
    Statuette of a Hero. 1780      115
    Two Figures of Sea Horses      119
    Figure Group with Cupid      123
    Figures. Old Woman; Man playing Flute      127
    Figures. Market Woman and Lobster-seller      131
    Figures. Naval and Military Uniform      133

  CHAPTER V.--THE _FLORA DANICA_ SERVICE (1790-1802).
    Fish Dish and Drainer      145
    Cruet Stand and Tray      151

  CHAPTER VI.--EARLY BLUE-AND-WHITE UNDERGLAZE PAINTED.
    Group of Underglaze blue painted (Bornholm period)      161
    Early Blue-and-white Plates (Danish pattern)      163
    Teapot and Tea Caddies      167
    Dish and two Plates      169

  CHAPTER VII.--THE SUCCESSORS OF MÜLLER (1820-1880).
    Bowl. Battle of Copenhagen      181
    Cup. Kronborg Castle and Shipping in Sound      185
    Plate. Painted with Flower Subject      189
    Figure of Mercury, after Thorvaldsen      193

  CHAPTER VIII.--THE MODERN RENAISSANCE.
    Placque. Wild Geese on Ice (_Arnold Krog_)      203
    Placque. Autumnal Scene (_Arnold Krog_)      207
    Placques. Kestrel (_V. Th. Fischer_); Meadow with Farmhouse
      (_C. F. Liisberg_)      211
    Placques. Birds (_V. Th. Fischer_); Cow in meadow
      (_G. Rode_)      217
    Placque. With Lake Scene (_C. F. Liisberg_)      221
    Placque. Snow Scene with Setting Sun (_A. Smidth_)      227
    Placque. Geese and Landscape (_C. F. Liisberg_)      231
    Vases. With Waterfowl (_V. Th. Fischer_ and
      _C. F. Liisberg_)      239
    Memorial Commemorative Placque, Ribe Cathedral (_A. Krog_)      243
    Dessert Plate, blue-and-white, with Danish pattern      249

  CHAPTER IX.--FIGURE SUBJECTS AND GROUPS (RENAISSANCE PERIOD).
    Figure. Woman and Cow (_Chr. Thomsen_)      271
    Figure. Boy and Calf (_Chr. Thomsen_)      275
    Figures of Peasants. Child and Old Woman (_Chr. Thomsen_)      279
    Figure Group. From Hans Christian Andersen's Story of
      "Princess and Swineherd" (_Chr. Thomsen_)      285

  CHAPTER X.--CRYSTALLINE GLAZES.
    Figure Group. Polar Bears on an Ice Floe (_C. E. Bonnesen_ and
      _V. Engelhardt_)      293
    Figure Subject. Frog imbedded in Ice (_A. Krog_ and
      _V. Engelhardt_)      297
    Vases. (_A. Krog_ and _V. Engelhardt_)      299
    Vases. Crystalline Glaze (_V. Engelhardt_)      303

  CHAPTER XI.--COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE.
    Dish with tropical bird (_Christian Joachim_)      307
    Placque with parrot (_Christian Joachim_)      311
    Vase with floral decoration      315
    Vase--hexagonal--with floral and arabesque decoration      319
    Figures. _A Midsummer Night's Dream_      323
    Figures. Clown, Columbine, and Harlequin      327
    Boxes and Vase      331

  CHAPTER XII.--THE FACTORY TO-DAY.
    Courtyard of Factory, showing Turkey with Brood      337
    Interior, showing Studios of Lady Artists      341




CHAPTER I

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE COPENHAGEN FACTORY

THE FOURNIER PERIOD SOFT-PASTE PORCELAIN (1760-1766)




CHAPTER I

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE COPENHAGEN FACTORY

_THE FOURNIER PERIOD_ (1760-1766)

  Establishment of porcelain factories in Europe--The German School
      and the French School--Hard paste--Soft paste--The new ceramic
      art--The great secret--The secret divulged--The first porcelain
      in Denmark.


In order to understand the initial stages in the history of the
manufacture of porcelain in Denmark, it is necessary to review the
peculiar conditions in which china factories existed in the eighteenth
century. At the middle of the century there were two great schools, the
German and the French. The former made hard or true porcelain according
to the formula of Meissen, and the latter made soft or artificial
porcelain in the manner of St. Cloud.

=Hard Paste.=--The impulse of the Western potter had always been to
reproduce exactly and chemically the Oriental porcelain. Until the
first decade of the eighteenth century this had not been achieved. The
news of the great discovery by Johann Fredrich Böttger, in 1709, of
a white translucent porcelain, having all the characteristics of the
Chinese ware, ran like a flame throughout Europe. Translucent porcelain
may be either what is termed hard paste (_pâte dure_), containing only
natural elements in the composition of the body and the glaze; or soft
paste (_pâte tendre_), where the body is an artificial combination of
various materials used as a substitute for the natural earths. All
Chinese or true porcelain is of the hard-paste variety. The term _pâte
tendre_ really applies to the feeble resistance of this artificial
porcelain to the action of a high temperature as compared with that
offered by true porcelain, and also to the softness of the glaze, which
can be scratched by steel.

The body of the true porcelain is essentially of two elements--the
white clay or _kaolin_, the infusible element which may be said to
be the skeleton, and _petuntse_, the felspathic stone, which is
fusible at a high temperature, which may be termed the flesh, and
gives transparency to the porcelain. Of the two Chinese names, which
have become classical since they were adopted in the dictionary of
the French Academy, _kaolin_ is the name of a locality where the best
porcelain earth is mined, and _petuntse_, literally "white briquettes,"
refers to the shape in which the finely pulverized porcelain stone is
brought to the Chinese potteries, after it has been submitted to the
preliminary processes of pounding and decantation.[1]

[1] _Chinese Art_, vol. ii. p. 16, 1906, by Stephen W. Bushell, C.M.G.
(late Physician to H.M. Legation, Peking).

=Soft Paste.=--The artificial porcelain, which was difficult of
fabrication, was an imitation of the true Chinese porcelain, although
its whiteness, its translucency, and its brilliant glaze have all the
appearance of true porcelain. _Kaolin_ and _petuntse_ are of little
importance in the composition of soft porcelain. Its transparency
was obtained by the addition of glass, its plasticity by the use of
soapstone, and its glaze by an admixture of silica and lead. Moreover,
the composition of artificial porcelain has required researches
and combinations much more intricate than those which had led to
the discovery of hard porcelain, the latter being produced by two
substances already provided by nature.

Imitative porcelain had been made at Florence under the auspices of
the Grand Duke of Tuscany as early as from 1568 to 1587, of which
_fabrique_ only about thirty pieces are known. France is the most
prolific in porcelain factories of the _pâte tendre_, as it came
afterwards to be termed in contradistinction to the _pâte dure_ or true
porcelain of Meissen. The factory at St. Cloud lasted from 1695 till
1773. Vincennes was founded in 1740, and was finally transferred to
Sèvres in 1756, which factory stands paramount in its porcelain, known
to collectors as _vieux Sèvres_.

At Nove, near Venice, in 1752, Pasqual Antonibon brought from Meissen a
potter, Sigismond Fischer, to construct a furnace for making porcelain
in the Saxon style. In 1761 there were three furnaces, one for hard
paste _ad uso Sassonia_, and two for soft paste _ad uso Francia_.[2]

[2] _Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain_, by William
Chaffers. (Letter from Francesco Antonibon to Lady Charlotte Schreiber.)

It will thus be seen that the two schools had begun to run side
by side. The crowning point was in 1768, when the Sèvres factory
commenced to make hard paste. Both bodies were simultaneously made
until 1804, after which the manufacture of soft porcelain at Sèvres was
discontinued by M. Brongniart. In 1847, the old style was revived by
his successor, M. Edelman (_Report on Pottery at the Paris Exhibition
by M. Arnoux_, 1867).

In general, it may be said that the manufacture of soft porcelain is
beset with difficulties and uncertainties. Its artificial composition
renders it capricious in the kiln. In connection therefore with the
modern manufacture of Sèvres of the old _pâte tendre_ variety, it is
interesting to record that in the late eighties the original formulæ
of the early potters were used in an attempt to reproduce the old
body, but had, after repeated and costly failures, to be abandoned as
hopeless.

[Illustration: SUCRIER AND COVER. Fournier period (1760-1766).
Soft-paste porcelain.]

[Illustration: DISH AND COVER AND CUSTARD CUP. Fournier period
(1760-1766). Soft-paste porcelain.

(_At Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen._)]

In regard to England, it is interesting to note in passing that the old
porcelains so highly prized by collectors are all artificial with the
exception of Plymouth (1768-1771), Bristol (1771-1781), followed by the
company of Staffordshire potters at New Hall who bought the Bristol
factory patents, although Wedgwood in his jasper ware and Staffordshire
salt glazed ware are fine stone wares which approximate to true
porcelain.

Our soft-paste factories are here set in chronological order: Bow
(1745), Chelsea (1745), Derby (1751), Worcester (1751), Lowestoft
(1762), Caughley (1772), Pinxton (1795), Coalport (1798), Minton
(1798). It should be observed that these, as do all soft-paste
porcelains, differ in body in an enormous degree, whereas the true
porcelain differs in a minor degree whether it be Canton or Meissen.

It was only for fifty years that the English potters used the
capricious body of the glassy soft porcelains then made. Gradually, by
experiment, the standard body for artificial porcelain was perfected
by the addition of bone-ash, which has been adopted since the late
eighteenth century in varying forms by all English potters. It is
more related to true porcelain, and is as safe to manufacture as that
body, and at a lower heat, but it retains many of the qualities of
the soft body. The painted colours melt into the glaze in its final
firing and produce that mellow effect so much esteemed by connoisseurs
of old porcelain. It is peculiarly English, and stands unique in
having technical assets not possessed by any other porcelain. This is
something great to record to the honour of the English potter in his
mastery of technique.

=The New Ceramic Art.=--The eighteenth century, in spite of the wars
which shook the kingdoms of Europe to their foundations, showed a
singular enthusiasm for the art of the potter. A reference to a table
of the factory marks of European porcelain of that period will disclose
the fact that most of the leading factories were under the auspices of
royal or noble patrons whose arms or monograms were incorporated in the
mark of the factory.

Kings, princes, electors, grand dukes, and margraves vied with
each other in producing rival ware. The St. Petersburg factory
had the cipher of the Emperor Paul. At Weesp, in Holland, Count
Gronsveldt-Diepenbroek's factory, the works were handed over to the
direction of a Protestant pastor. From Vienna with the mark of the
Austrian arms, to La Haye with the design of the stork, the symbol of
the city; from the arms of the Archbishop of Mayence and the cross
and initials of the Prince Bishop of Fulda, to the design of Lille,
the _Manufacture Royale de Monseigneur le Dauphin_ with the crowned
dolphin, a bewildering entanglement of royal marks and patrician
ciphers is studded on china, to the confusion of collectors, adding
zest to the art of the connoisseur.

=The Great Secret.=--The actual discovery of the composition of true
porcelain by Böttger is interwoven with romance, and the betrayal of
the secret processes of its manufacture at Meissen to the leading
factories of Europe is a record filled with stirring incidents of the
most piquant character. The story of young Böttger, the alchemist and
inventor, is told in full by Professor Ernst Zimmermann, Keeper of the
Royal Porcelain Collection at Dresden, _Die Erfindung und Frühzeit des
Meissner Porzellans_, Berlin, 1908. The search for the philosopher's
stone to transmute baser metals into gold had fascinated all chemists.
Böttger was credited with more knowledge than he possessed, and he
hastily quitted Berlin to avoid the too assiduous attentions of the
King of Prussia. For years he wandered in Saxony, and finally claimed
protection in 1701 from Frederick Augustus, Elector of Saxony. His life
at the laboratory at Meissen, under Ehrenfried Walter von Tschirnhaus,
who was a distinguished scientific scholar, was that of a guarded
prisoner with a wonderful secret. Tschirnhaus, who was a good chemist,
established a glass furnace and invented an ingenious burning mirror,
and had essayed to make porcelain. But on the assumption that it was a
vitrification, his results only led him to the production of a milky
glass. A specimen of this _milch glass_ is in the Japanese Palace at
Dresden.

When Charles XII of Sweden invaded Saxony, Böttger and his workmen
were hurried off to the impregnable fortress of Königstein, where a
laboratory was erected. A year later he was back at Meissen conducting
experiments and cheerfully exhorting the workmen. In 1709 he produced
his true hard porcelain from natural earth obtained from Aue, near
Schneeberg.

The most elaborate precautions were taken at Meissen to prevent the
secret becoming known. The earth was delivered in sealed casks. It was
in vain that an oath was exacted from each workman and written on the
walls--"Silence until death" (_Geheim bis ins grab_). The punishment
for betrayal was incarceration as a State prisoner in the fortress
of Königsberg for life. The terrible silent conditions of the labour
produced a longing on the part of the immured workmen to escape. And
escape they did.

=The Secret divulged.=--In 1718, the year previous to Böttger's death
Stolzel, the chief workman at Meissen, made his way to Vienna and
proceeded to establish, under the direction of a Belgian named Claude
Du Pasquier, a manufactory of hard porcelain. The factory was acquired
for the State by the Empress Maria Theresa in 1744.

From Vienna a workman named Ringler carried the secret far and wide.
His name is linked with the founding of several factories--at Höchst in
1740, at Frankenthal in 1754, where he became director, at Nymphenberg
in 1756, where his aid was invoked, at Ludwigsberg (in Würtemberg) in
1758, and at Zurich in 1759.

The workmen of Höchst, in their turn, further divulged the secret.
Bengraf, in 1750, carried the process to Fürstenberg, the factory under
the patronage of the Duke of Brunswick.

In 1744 an imperial china factory was established at St. Petersburg by
the Empress Elizabeth Petrowna, who employed workmen from Meissen, and
in 1765, under the patronage of the Empress Catherine II, the works
were enlarged.

There were two methods of obtaining the great secret of Meissen--by
stealth and by experiment; most of the factories employed the former
means. The attempts to arrive at the hard paste by experiment resulted
in the establishment of many soft-paste factories. One remarkable
instance of indefatigable industry is that of the chemist Pott, in
the employ of the King of Prussia at Berlin, who endeavoured honestly
to arrive at the nature of the composition of the Meissen body. He is
credited with having made no fewer than thirty thousand experiments,
and in so doing he contributed largely to the modern chemical knowledge
of the effect of high temperatures on minerals.[3]

[3] Roscoe and Schorlemmer, _Treatise on Chemistry_, vol. ii. p. 598.

It is thus seen how great was the discovery of Böttger, of Meissen,
and how far-reaching were the results of the manufacture of true
porcelain in Saxony. A wild burst of enthusiasm followed which has been
rarely equalled. Soldier-princes engaged in the wars which were waged
in the German States turned aside to indulge in speculation concerning
the new art. In 1717 about a hundred and fifty pieces of fine
porcelain, many of them old Oriental, now at the Japanese Palace at
Dresden, were acquired by Augustus the Strong of Saxony from the King
of Prussia in exchange for a regiment of dragoons, without uniforms,
horses, or arms.

When the vigilant Frederick the Great commenced the Seven Years' War,
and on a sudden filled the electorate of Saxony with sixty thousand
Prussian troops, Dresden was taken. It was in vain that the Queen of
Poland, daughter of an emperor and mother-in-law of a dauphin, placed
the secret State documents in her bedroom to avoid seizure. They were
too valuable to Frederick, who had them forcibly removed, and by
publishing them proved that he was to be assailed at once by Austria,
France, Russia, Sweden, Saxony, and the Germanic body.

The factory of Meissen was depleted of material and models, and he
transported artists and workmen to Berlin to found his factory there.
Five hundred persons were engaged at this new factory, and in order to
win commercial success he executed a master-stroke by framing a decree
that all Jews in his kingdom must produce a voucher from the director
of the factory that they had purchased a certain amount of the royal
porcelain before permission would be granted to enable them to marry.

[Illustration: VASE (ONE OF A PAIR).

Decorated in rococo style with panels having allegorical subjects, one
of which has a medallion supported by cupids upon which a crown and F5
are inscribed in gold. Festoons of flowers, painted in natural colours,
are suspended from a ring at top of vase; all in high relief. Marked F5
in gold.

(_In the collection of Count Moltke, of Bregentved._)]

It is such human touches as these, significant in their piquancy, which
give exceptional interest to the porcelain of the old days produced
in conditions of no little difficulty. Under Court patronage, beset
by espionage and hedged about by intrigue, the secret of one factory
rapidly found its way across the frontier to the neighbouring State.
The fortunes of potters have not lain in smooth places, and fate has
been as capricious as the fire of the furnace. In eighteenth-century
days the _furore_ of mad dilettantism pursued them relentlessly. Royal
amateurs more often than not asked them to make bricks without straw,
and there was still in the air the lingering suspicion that the furnace
might yield up the secret of the philosopher's stone and fill the State
treasury to the full.

=The First Porcelain in Denmark.=--It is not difficult to imagine the
situation. King Frederik V determined to found a porcelain factory of
his own. His queen consort was Louise, daughter of George II, who died
in 1751, eight years after her marriage. His second wife was Juliane
Marie, of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

[Illustration: MARK.

Fournier period (1760-1766). Soft-paste Porcelain.]

Faience was made at various factories in Denmark, and it is more
than conjectural that various native attempts were made to produce
porcelain. The royal factory, which the king built near the Blue Tower
at Christianshavn, with the aid of foreign workmen whom he had induced
to enter his service, commenced to make various experiments. Mehlhorn
was one of the alien potters brought from Saxony, but apparently,
whether from paucity of natural earths or owing to faulty kilns,
nothing of any moment resulted until Louis Fournier, a Frenchman
(1760-1766), was induced to take charge of the factory. During what is
known as the Fournier period the French director had the assistance
of Danish artists, including Johannes Wiedewelt the sculptor. His
contemporaries speak of the services he designed. Doubtless many of
them were intended as presents to foreign princes and ambassadors, and
found their way into royal and foreign cabinets. Although only about
twenty pieces of the Fournier period are known, it is not impossible
that careful research may discover that some of the early pieces
attributed to Fürstenberg may really belong to Fournier of Copenhagen.
Obviously, on account of their rarity they are of great value and
of exceptional interest as being the first creations of the Royal
Copenhagen Porcelain Factory. The identification should be rendered the
easier when it is borne in mind that the early Copenhagen porcelain of
the Fournier period is soft paste, whereas the Fürstenberg porcelain is
hard paste. The mark F with the figure 5 stands for Frederik V and not
for Fournier. The coincidence of the initial letter is like the W in
Worcester porcelain of the Dr. Wall period.

The early creations of the Copenhagen factory were porcelain, it is
true, but they are not the hard or true porcelain of Meissen. They are
the soft paste of the same nature as the _pâte tendre_ of contemporary
Sèvres. They did not attain the high ideal contemplated by Frederik V
when he set out to equal the Saxon porcelain and the other hard-paste
porcelains of Germany, but they arrived at a dignity and a grace
of style which are worthy of regard. As first attempts they are of
surprising beauty, and the few specimens remaining arouse curiosity as
to what masterpieces of this short period have been lost to posterity.

The modelling, the design, and the colouring of such early examples
as these of a new factory are naturally dependent on prototypes. It
was a great thing to produce porcelain at all, consequently the style
is found to be derivative. A fine Sèvres jar with cover, in date 1761,
at the Sèvres Museum, has a family likeness to the Fournier cups with
covers in Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen. Although these latter have the
same type of decoration with a white panel on a dark ground, it will
be seen that the Sèvres example exhibits the sure mastery of technique
of an older factory. The painting is richer and of more detail, with
birds of tropical plumage. The Fournier examples, with handles, were
evidently designed for use. There are five of these covered custard
cups at Rosenborg Castle, three having green and two having blue
grounds; we illustrate an example. At the _Kunstindustri Museum_ at
Copenhagen there are two custard cups and covers of similar form--one
with red decoration; and the other with red and green, and floral
decoration painted in colours. These are both marked F5 in blue.

It is interesting to note, in the archives of the Sèvres factory, that
Louis XV sent, in 1758, to the King of Denmark a service of green,
decorated with figures, flowers, and birds, which cost 30,000 livres.
Here, at hand, was a fine Sèvres service as model for Fournier, and
the resemblance of soft-paste Copenhagen porcelain to Sèvres is not
difficult to understand.

In the illustration of the _Oval Dish and Cover_ standing beside the
cup with handle, the ware is coarser and in paste and colouring is
not unlike some of the earlier specimens of Bow china. These and the
other illustration of _Sucrier with Cover and Dish_ are from the famous
collection at Rosenborg Castle. The sucrier and cover are decorated
with scale pattern; portions of the outer rim are moulded in relief and
the floral decoration is in natural colours.

A _Teapot_ from a tea service at the National Museum at Stockholm
exhibits a similar style in this experimental period. The colours of
the teapot, cream jug, and cups and saucers are emerald green borders
with gilding. The flowers are painted in natural colours. They bear the
Fournier mark F5 in gold. The service was a present to King Charles XV
of Sweden from the Countess Dannemand.

In the collection of Count Moltke of Bregentved are four fine _Vases_
of this period. They exhibit the rococo style then prevalent and are
remarkable works emanating from the little royal factory of Copenhagen
during the first years of its existence. On one of these vases is a
panel decorated with a group of Cupids supporting a shield upon which
is inscribed the mark used by Fournier in the period of Frederik V.

All these soft-paste Copenhagen examples are of great rarity. The
Fournier period was of short duration. The death of Frederik V, in
1766, removed its royal patron. The winter of 1766-7 brought great
distress in Copenhagen, and the masked balls and masquerades and
the luxurious riot of the Court of the young king Christian VII at
Christianborg inflamed public opinion against the new monarch.

It is obvious that at such a juncture the royal factory, which in its
struggling infancy needed enthusiastic patronage, suffered from neglect
so that it is not surprising to find that its days were numbered, and
after a vain struggle it finally ceased work. Louis Fournier returned
to France, and the first period of Copenhagen porcelain came to an end.




CHAPTER II

FRANTZ HEINRICH MÜLLER (1773-1801)

QUEEN JULIANE MARIE PERIOD PART I (1775-1780)

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF FRANTZ HEINRICH MÜLLER. (From an old
lithograph.)

_Reproduced by kind permission of "Tidsskrift for Industri,"
Copenhagen._]


CHRONOLOGY

  1732. Frantz Heinrich Müller born, 17th November.

  1765. Müller solicits support for the establishment of a porcelain
        factory.

  1773. Frantz Heinrich Müller presents his first pieces of hard-fired
        transparent porcelain to Christian VII. The first hard
        porcelain made in Denmark.

  1775. A company formed, of which the members of the Royal Family held
        shares. The Dowager Queen Juliane Marie suggests the factory
        mark of the three blue lines, symbolizing the three waterways
        of Denmark, which mark was adopted and has been continuously
        used since that date.

  1779. The factory taken over by the king becomes the Royal Porcelain
        Manufactory.

  1780. The first retail depot opened in Copenhagen.




CHAPTER II

FRANTZ HEINRICH MÜLLER (1773-1801)

_QUEEN JULIANE MARIE PERIOD_ PART I (1775-1780)

  The Court of the young king Christian VII--A great Court scandal--A
      _Coup d'Etat_--The inception of the Porcelain Factory--The origin
      of the mark of the Three Blue Lines--Müller's technique--Müller's
      range of subjects.


At the death of King Frederik V, in January 1766, and the succession
of Christian VII, then seventeen years of age, the royal china factory
at the Blue Tower fell upon evil days. When Frantz Heinrich Müller,
"only after numerous unsuccessful attempts," presented his first
three pieces of hard-fired transparent porcelain to the young king in
September 1773, there were matters of much graver moment occupying
public attention. It was almost in vain that Müller had built new kilns
differing from those in which soft porcelain was made, travelled to
Bornholm to find suitable clay, and experimented with glazes.

In the six years since the death of Frederik, Denmark had passed
through one of the most tragical periods of her history. Christian
VII, a manikin prince, became the sport of fate. Caroline Matilda, the
sister of George III of England, at the early age of fifteen, became
his queen. Himself the son of the beloved Louise, daughter of George
II, great hopes were entertained by the Danish people of the alliance.
But perverse circumstances--with the grim figure of the Dowager Queen
Juliane Marie in the background--beset the path of the young couple.

The Court at Christianborg, an echo of Versailles, filled with
painted men and women who affected to despise Danish customs and even
the Danish tongue, was a hot-bed of intrigue. Christian threw etiquette
to the winds in his sanctum, surrounded by boon companions. The coterie
had all the abandon of Sans Souci without the master-mind of Frederick
of Prussia and the wit and satire of that monarch's _confidantes_.
Madame de Plessen, lady-in-waiting, stern precisian in etiquette,
devoted to her young mistress, but heedlessly tactless, made a breach
between the king and queen. The bride of a year retired to the company
of staid dowagers and played chess. The petulance and malicious tricks
of the king early showed that, unable to govern himself, he was unable
to govern others. Madame de Plessen was dismissed by the king and
ordered to leave Denmark. Christian's dissipation was rapidly becoming
a public scandal. The "Northern Rogue" was the mild epithet of the
English populace, who cheered the little king when he came to St.
James's. Echoes of his wild life reached Matilda at Copenhagen.

[Illustration: VASE WITH COVER.

With wreaths of roses and other flowers in high relief, painted in
natural colours. Cover with seated figure of cupid with garland. Panel
with painted portrait of the Dowager Queen Juliane Marie. Height 15
inches.

(_At Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen._)]

=A Great Court Scandal.=--At this juncture a remarkable man, John
Frederick Struensee, the king's physician, a German, possessed of
extraordinary talents, gradually began to assume control of State
affairs. The tragic story is too intricate to refer to here in more
than a cursory manner. Queen Matilda's attachment to Struensee is as
romantic as that of Mary Queen of Scots for Rizzio. An English author
has termed her "A Queen of Tears."[4] It is Madame de Genlis who
affirms that "men summon physicians only when they suffer, women when
they are merely afflicted with _ennui_." In six years this man became
the most powerful in Denmark. An amazing state of things followed.
The envoys of the various Powers became alarmed at the situation.
Drastic reforms followed one another in quick succession, inaugurated
by Struensee, but promulgated in the king's name. Undoubtedly
Struensee had a genius for government had he tempered his reforms
with discretion. He was saturated with German philosophy, and based
his ethics on Voltaire and the sordid sentiment of Rousseau. "It is
the path of the passions that has conducted me to philosophy," writes
Jean-Jacques, and Struensee might well have applauded that sentiment.
He invented a new office and became "Master of Requests" and virtually
Prime Minister. But he offended too many people's interests and became
the object of hatred. He galled the old nobility by his despotic power,
and the Dowager-Queen Juliane Marie, from her seclusion at Fredensborg,
filled the Court with spies. The weak-minded king, now showing signs
of mental aberration, signed everything put before him, and the young
Queen Matilda was under the domination of Struensee, who openly treated
her with disrespect.

[4] _A Queen of Tears, Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark and Norway,
and Princess of Great Britain and Ireland_, by W. H. Wilkins, M.A.,
F.S.A. (2 vols.), London, 1904.

In 1771 there was great distress in the country and discontent was
growing. Scurrilous letters fell at the feet of Struensee and Matilda
on their walks at Hirscholm, and placards of a threatening nature
were affixed to the walls of the royal palaces. Struensee had flouted
the army by attempting to disband the Guards. The mutterings of
disaffection became more audible. His effrontery deserted him. He grew
craven-hearted in face of grave dangers. His failure stamps him as a
colossal adventurer at bottom; had he been of sterner stuff he might
have become a hero.

=A Coup d'Etat.=--The hour for striking a blow was at hand, and
Queen Juliane Marie and her son Frederik, with a band of conspirators,
at a masked ball on the night of January 16, 1772, seized the person
of the king, together with Matilda; the latter was hurried off to the
fortress of Kronborg, and Struensee and Brandt, his coadjutor, were
imprisoned in the citadel at Copenhagen.

[Illustration: VASE WITH COVER.

With wreaths of roses and other flowers in high relief, painted in
natural colours. Cover with seated figure of cupid with garland Panel
with painted portrait of the Crown Prince Frederik. Height 15 inches.

(_At Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen._)]

The trial and divorce of Matilda and the beheading of Struensee and
Brandt is a poignant story. The name of the unfortunate young queen was
ordered to be officially omitted from the prayer-book at a time when
she surely stood most in need of prayer. Juliane Marie pursued Matilda
with vindictiveness, and her malevolence nearly precipitated Denmark in
a war with England. It was intended that Matilda should be imprisoned
in a remote fortress in Jutland. The British Minister, Sir Robert
Murray Keith, informed the Danish Government that unless Queen Matilda
was released he would present his letters of recall and war would be
declared. The Danish Minister in London wrote in great haste to say
that a fleet was fitting out. It was only then that Queen Juliane Marie
released her hold of Matilda and allowed her to depart to Celle, in the
State of Hanover, where she died in 1775 in her twenty-third year.

Here, then, was the state of affairs when Müller was experimenting
with his clays, his glazes, and his colours. In 1771 a hundred and
fifty weavers set out on foot from Copenhagen to Hirscholm, in days
of panic, to complain that they were starving because the royal silk
factory was closed. It was an ill-starred venture to attempt the
establishment of a new porcelain factory, but in face of reverses of
fortune and undeterred by lack of support, Müller by his immense energy
fired into being the great porcelain factory of Copenhagen. To Müller
the Dane belongs the honour of founding the little factory which strove
to achieve results no less beautiful than Meissen, Berlin, or Sèvres.
Begun in a spirit of worthy emulation, the Copenhagen factory shortly
began to develop an original and national style, in spite of the fact
that it worked in the early days on foreign suggestion and employed
foreign artists.

=The Inception of the Porcelain Factory.=--Frantz Heinrich Müller was
born on the 17th of November 1732. When an apprentice, from the age of
fifteen, at the Kong Salomon's Pharmacy at Copenhagen, he devoted his
leisure to the study of chemistry, botany, mineralogy, and metallurgy.
He was appointed as Guardian of the Mint at the Bank of Copenhagen
in his twenty-eighth year, and held the post from 1760 to 1767. As
early as 1765 he had the object in view of establishing a porcelain
factory; together with a painter named Richter we find him soliciting
support. In common with his contemporaries he cast eager eyes on
foreign porcelain. He wandered for three years on the Continent under
an assumed name, and the unravelling of this period of his career would
throw much light on his researches.

[Illustration: PORTION OF TEA AND COFFEE SERVICE, WITH TEA-CADDIES, ETC.

Decorated, overglaze, in Indian red.]

Müller, on his secret mission in Germany, found that the china
factories of Fürstenberg, Meissen, and Berlin were closed to him. But
he threw his whole life and energy into his work. He outlived the
opposition of the Society of Apothecaries, who objected to a licence
being granted him as a druggist and dispenser. But in face of the
objection the College of Medicine found the applicant "a very capable,
learned, and experienced man, not only in Pharmacy, but also in
Chemistry, Assaying, and Natural History." With characteristic energy
he passed the pharmaceutical examination at the age of forty-one;
already he had shown originality and inventiveness by making several
discoveries in colours and in dyeing. But with all his virility he
found financial success no easy matter at such a disturbed period. He
endeavoured to form a company for the manufacture of Danish porcelain.
To his chagrin, only one share was sold.

At the outset there was little promise that his untiring efforts would
win the remotest recognition from his countrymen. It seemed imminent
that the whole enterprise would have to be abandoned. Happily, Privy
Chancellor Holm, the private secretary to the Dowager-Queen Juliane
Marie, saw possibilities in the venture. To revive the old factory
which Fournier had vacated was an opportunity not to be missed. If it
proved a success, it would redound to the credit of the queen and add
lustre to the new _régime_ just commenced under the sway of Juliane
Marie, with Guldberg as the power behind the throne. Christian VII had
simply passed as a signer of documents into the keeping of another set
of masters.

Of the shares, most of them in the new factory were held by members of
the royal family and one by Müller himself. The directors were Holm;
Suhm, the historian; General Eickstedt, one of the conspirators who
took a leading part in the arrest at the masked ball; and Guldberg,
who had a finger in every pie. On the 13th of March 1775 the company
obtained the monopoly of the manufacture of porcelain in all the
dominions of the King of Denmark, in spite of the opposition of the
Board of Trade.

=The Origin of the Mark of the Three Blue Lines.=--The first meeting of
the company was held on the 1st of May 1775. It was decided that the
trade-mark of the factory, according to the proposal of Queen Juliane
Marie, should be three wavy lines, always marked in blue, representing
Denmark's three waterways--_Oresund_, and the two belts: _Storebelt_,
between Sjaelland and Fyen; _Lillebelt_, between Fyen and Jutland. With
this trade-mark of the three blue lines the Copenhagen factory (_Den
Danske Porcellænsfabrik_) took its place beside the older factories
on the Continent, and to this day, a hundred and forty-three years
afterwards, this same mark appears on all porcelain emanating from the
Royal Copenhagen Factory.

[Illustration: SAUCER.

Subject, Eagle and lamb painted in natural colours. Richly gilded
border.

_(At the Kunstindustri Museum, Copenhagen._)]

Although Müller only had one share of the subscribed capital,
there was only one controlling brain. He worked the enterprise
single-handedly. It was "_par ses seules lumières_," to quote a
contemporary French account of the factory, that he had succeeded in
producing the beautiful porcelain which won early recognition from
connoisseurs. But the Court were not eager to encourage ambition. After
the late startling exhibition of a now defunct medico, whose head
still stuck on a pole on Gallows Hill, genius must needs be rigorously
safeguarded. In common, therefore, with his artisans, Müller was
required to sign a contract binding him to remain in the employ of the
Court factory, and to keep secret all that he knew of the manufacture
of porcelain--his own invention. His official position was only that of
works manager.

Genius, that indomitable and unquenchable spirit which overrides all
obstacles, found Müller, with his crowd of untried soldier workmen and
crude apprentices, ceaselessly working in the factory from five in the
morning till seven in the evening, and often superintending the firing
all night. In 1776 three workmen were inveigled from Meissen to the
Court factory at Copenhagen, but only two out of the three showed any
ability. Their supercilious manners, together with their higher wages,
brought trouble in the factory among the other workmen, and Müller
expelled them by force. But he made one appointment which undoubtedly
was of benefit to the factory; by contributing part of the salary
himself, he brought A. C. Luplau from the Fürstenberg factory, who
became modelling master. As early as 1776 the name of Ba er appears as
a painter in colours, as opposed to the painters in underglaze blue.
It was Ba er who afterwards was entrusted with the painting of the
celebrated _Flora Danica_ service, begun in 1790. Others whose names
are found in the early records are Hans Clio and the portrait painters,
Camrath and Ondrup.

The first four years of the factory were very critical. Notwithstanding
the close application of Müller, the financial position came to a
serious crisis in 1779. There seemed every likelihood that the factory
would follow in the steps of Fournier and close its doors. How the
royal shareholders adjusted matters is not known, nor what became of
Müller's one share in the enterprise. The debts were paid in the king's
name, and the factory was taken over by the State and became the Royal
Porcelain Manufactory (_Den Kongelige Porcellænsfabrik_), which name it
bears at the present day. In March 1780 a retail business was opened at
Copenhagen in connection with the factory. Müller was made inspector of
the factory and the title of Councillor of Justice was conferred upon
him.

[Illustration: SAUCER.

Subject, Water-god painted in purple, with green wreath of aquatic
foliage on a base of shells and seaweed.

(_At the Kunstindustri Museum, Copenhagen._)]

Dated specimens have an exceptional interest in proving that no
inconsiderable progress had at that time been made in the artistic
development of the factory. Already in form and in decoration there was
something distinctive in Müller's ware. Such pieces show indisputably
that great days were at hand, if indeed in these first few years
success had not already been achieved in training artists and craftsmen
in the new industry.

=Müller's Technique.=--Danish ceramic art is profoundly indebted to
Müller for his pioneer work. He was a giant in days when pigmies
controlled the destinies. His unflagging energy, his practical
experiments, and his original and inventive genius impelled him to
implant national characteristics in the Royal Copenhagen porcelain
which have never departed from the ware of this factory. His first
attempts were made with kaolin which he obtained from the island of
Bornholm. He soon realized that this did not fulfil all the conditions
necessary for a fine body. It was of a greyish-blue tint, and was
liable to lose its shape in firing. In appearance it is not very
transparent and is somewhat coarse, like some of the old Japanese
porcelain. Of this Bornholm period mention will be made later in
dealing with the early examples of blue underglaze painted ware, which
is a special variety by itself, running concurrently with the overglaze
painted ware which Müller brought in his best period to unexampled
perfection.

He prepared the glazes himself, determined the correct method of
firing, and made the colours used at the factory. The blue that he
invented is perfect, and is to be found on the early specimens of
underglaze painted porcelain for domestic use. The green and the
purple found in the early Müller period were his own discovery and
of exceptional quality in tone. He was a master of technique, and
perfected a new body which he called "virgin paste." This is of a
dazzling white, and Müller's glaze is transparent and smooth as
polished crystal. The tint is that of the green of the sea, and without
doubt its technical excellence lends great beauty to the porcelain
of this period. Considering the primitive methods of working and the
impure materials then available, the perfection and beauty of the
results claim profound admiration from the connoisseur. Even with
the aid of modern technology and chemistry it has not yet been found
possible to equal the technique of Müller's best period.

The year 1780, the date when the first opening of the retail
business took place, was the turning-point in the history of the
factory. Müller was acclaimed as a genius by his countrymen. It was
proposed that a statue should be erected to his honour--and this in his
lifetime. A wave of enthusiasm found an outlet in Latin poems to "the
man who had done so much for his king and country." It is exceptional
to find such contemporary honour bestowed on a potter. Rarely is a man
a prophet in his own country. But happily Müller lived to wear the
laurel wreath. "What honour," writes a contemporary, "this industry
has brought its founder! I was enraptured with the things which I saw.
How could I have dreamed that these could be made by a Dane and in my
native land!"

[Illustration: COFFEE CUPS.

Painted in overglaze colours with blue border richly gilded.

  Rose and spray in natural colours.
        Group of cavalry in rich uniform, in colours.]

We catch an insight into Müller's methods from a letter he wrote,
when eighty years of age, to Boye, a subsequent director, who had
suggested the use of some pieces of new apparatus for the laboratory.
Old Müller wrote as follows: "I fail to see the use or necessity of the
thermometer, eudiometer, or hydrometer. I have never found it necessary
to apply such exact learning in the manufacture of porcelain, and ideas
such as these appear to me to be absolutely absurd." While allowance
must be made for Müller's advanced age and his hypersensitiveness
towards his successors, it is of great interest to speculate upon his
point of view. Man of science that he was, his deprecatory regard for
these instruments seems to denote that his technique was arrived at by
practical rule-of-thumb methods, dependent upon personal exactitude
rather than upon formulæ. It is idle to scoff at Müller's conservatism,
for science has yet to unravel the secret of the lost art of tempering
the Damascene blade and the subtleties of the potter's art of the
K'ang Hsi period in the single coloured glazes, _la qualité maîtresse
de la céramique_, the delicacies of the rare _peau de pêche_, the
_famille rose_, and the _famille verte_. In the late seventeenth and
early eighteenth-century days the methods of Chinese potters were as
unscientific as those defended by Müller, but the results are "not
of an age, but for all time." And Müller's results stand the test of
intense criticism; they are hitherto inimitable.

=Müller's Range of Subjects.=--In regard to the periods of the various
styles of Müller, with very few data to guide the critic it must be
largely a matter of conjecture as to the exact chronological order of
their manufacture. It seems to the present writer, in endeavouring to
classify the examples, that they naturally fall under the following
heads. One class overlaps another in point of time, and although at
first, in the experimental period, elaborate artistic creations cannot
at that stage have been attempted, it must equally follow that in the
middle and later period the simpler and utilitarian forms were still
being made concurrently with the finer works of art.

The natural order of development in point of technique would be:--

  1. Underglaze painted "mussel" blue-and-white fluted porcelain (pp.
      161, 163, 167).

  2. Early examples painted in colours overglaze. (See illustrations,
      pp. 65, 89.)

        (_a_) Dishes, plates, tea and coffee services.

        (_b_) Vases and ornamental pieces of a minor character.

  3. Vases with modelled figures. Figure subjects in colours.

  4. Busts, in biscuit.

  5. Elaborate and finely modelled vases and sumptuous services, of
      which the _Flora Danica_ is the culmination.

[Illustration: COFFEE CUP.

With painted subject of Frantz Heinrich Müller in his laboratory, in an
oval surrounded by wreath of flowers in gold. Marked with three blue
lines. Blue border with inscription in verse in gold:--

Forstanden, Sind og Sands kan samtligen förnojes--Naar ved Naturens
Kraft paa chymiske veije plöijes--Men vil og Nytten sees da skal
Forstanden raade--Og binde Sind om Sands til det som Skatter baade.

(Translation.)

_The finest senses may well pleased be--When Nature leans on Science
for her aid--But Art in wedlock with Utility--Demands from skill a
double debt be paid._

(_At the National Museum, Stockholm._)]

It is obvious that in the immature years of a pottery figure subjects
would be rarely attempted until such time as the potters were sure
of their ground and the technique had been securely established. The
highest artistic achievements must necessarily come after the rudiments
of the art have been mastered. In regard to figure subjects, the fact
that Luplau came to Copenhagen in 1776 with eighteen years' experience
from the Fürstenberg factory must be taken into consideration in regard
to the appearance, at an earlier stage than usual in the history of a
factory, of figures of excellent character. But at the same time it
must be borne in mind that the utilitarian blue-and-white services, the
national Danish pattern now so well known, were made simultaneously
with such fine creations as the elaborate royal services at Rosenborg
Castle and elsewhere.

All through the periods from Müller onwards the famous blue-and-white
has remained as a standard output; but as a rough generalization, with
the reservation admitted in regard to figures, it may be said that the
classes above mentioned followed one another in quick succession, until
the climax of the Müller period was reached, when the Royal Copenhagen
Factory worthily claimed a place beside the great factories in Europe.




CHAPTER III

FRANTZ HEINRICH MÜLLER (1773-1801) _continued_

QUEEN JULIANE MARIE PERIOD PART II (1780-1796)


CHRONOLOGY

  1780. The first retail depot opened by the Royal Porcelain
        Manufactory in Copenhagen. The china becomes national.

  1784. Queen Juliane Marie and her son Frederik, the Hereditary
        Prince, overthrown.

  The Crown Prince Frederik undertakes the government of the country
        on behalf of his imbecile father, Christian VII.

  1790. The importation of foreign porcelain into Denmark prohibited.

  The great _Flora Danica_ service for Catherine II, Empress of
        Russia, commenced.

  1796. Queen Juliane Marie dies in retirement.

  1801. The battle of Copenhagen.

  Müller retires from active work at the factory, then in his
        sixty-ninth year.

  1807. Copenhagen bombarded by the British fleet. Considerable damage
        done to the Royal Porcelain Factory.

  1808. The Crown Prince Frederik ascends the throne as Frederik VI on
        the death of his father, Christian VII.

  The _Flora Danica_ service completed.

  1820. Death of Müller. Buried 9th March.




CHAPTER III

FRANTZ HEINRICH MÜLLER (1773-1801) _continued_

_QUEEN JULIANE MARIE PERIOD_ PART II (1780-1796)

  The great outburst of activity in 1780--The manufacture of
      porcelain an assured success--A contemporary account of the
      factory--A national style created--The diversity of Müller's
      designs--National sentiment--Table of marks (1775-1801)--List of
      leading painters and modellers (1773-1801).


The masterpieces of Müller come, as do all _chefs-d'œuvres_, as a
surprise. Their gracefulness and poetic charm are captivating. To
those who have never had the opportunity to examine a fine collection
of old Copenhagen porcelain the discovery of these works of art is a
revelation. It has hitherto been supposed that the productions of the
little Danish factory were only imitative of the works of the older and
better-known German factories. But to the most superficial observer
it is at once evident that here is something at once national and
beautiful.

During the ten years subsequent to the opening of the retail
establishment in Copenhagen, the output of the factory must have been
very extensive. It is interesting to find that in 1790 the Custom House
regulations relative to the subject are as follows: "Foreign china is
prohibited, because the manufactory at Copenhagen, which is at the
charge of the State, has been of late productive enough to supply
the two kingdoms with an article of luxury, more than of necessity.
Painted earthenware is likewise prohibited, from its resemblance to
china being so great that many may be induced to purchase it instead of
a more valuable article; but plain earthenware, being more generally
necessary, is allowed, as is also the porcelain brought over by the
East India ships belonging to the Asiatic Company."

=A Contemporary Account of the Factory.=--The testimony of two foreign
critics who visited the factory in 1790 is a valuable record, as
they produced authoritative statistical volumes on Northern Europe.
Their opinion assists the modern student in forming an estimate of
the relative value of the Royal Copenhagen porcelain as compared with
that of the great contemporary factories, especially Meissen. In _Les
Voyages de deux François dans le Nord de l'Europe_ (the Chevalier Louis
de Boisgelin and the Comte Alfonse de Fortia), published by the latter,
the trade and manufactures of Denmark receive full treatment.

We quote from the English edition, _Travels through Denmark and
Sweden: to which is prefixed a Journal of a Voyage down the Elbe from
Dresden to Hamburgh, including a compendious historical account of
the Hanseatic League, by Louis de Boisgelin, Knight of Malta, with
views from drawings taken on the spot by Dr. Charles Parry_. This was
published in two quarto volumes in 1810. The author states that the
former volume written by his fellow-traveller is so rare that it is
hardly possible to procure a copy "either of the original edition or of
the counterfeit one produced in Germany."

The details in regard to the factory as it then existed are very
interesting. There were three large and two small ovens; one of these
was the first employed by Müller when he produced his hard porcelain.
The ovens were of brick. A firing lasted eighteen hours. It took
four days to cool. "These ovens are capable of firing eight complete
services at once, whereas those of Saxony cannot take in more than
three. The fire here is so well distributed that in many of the
firings of fine porcelain the loss sustained is scarcely more than ten
rix-dollars."

After describing the process of glazing, the writer proceeds
to describe the most important operation of all, performed in a
room "where there is only one man, who takes an oath to have no
communication whatsoever with any other workman. He works a mill by
hand in which he prepares the paste, and mixes the different matters
which compose the glaze." Of the mills for grinding there were two. The
granite came from Zealand; "the black is of no use for this operation,
which is not performed in the same manner as in Saxony, where the
matter is mixed without water, but here it is quite the contrary. By
the method employed in this country there is as much made in two hours
as they can possibly produce in Saxony in twenty-four; besides the
advantage of having no occasion for sieves."

A contemporary account such as this by competent observers who had
visited other porcelain factories in Europe and came with the definite
object of finding out as much as possible, is of supreme importance
as a document. It appears that the blue which came from Norway was
considered the finest. There was an immense loft for "coffins," or
cases, to be stored for a year before being ready for use. These were
made from Bornholm clay, and were used in the ovens as "saggers," as
the term is in English pottery, to contain the porcelain. "The moulds
are made of a kind of plaster which comes from France. This," says the
narrative, "is the only foreign article employed in the manufactory."

In regard to the overglaze colours used there are some interesting
facts. Yellow is made from pure tin; purple, with tin and gold; dark
poppy, with iron; sky-blue, with cobalt; black, with manganese;
rose-colour, with gold; and green, with copper. "These colours never
change in firing, but remain precisely as they were first drawn;
whereas they spread in many other factories."

Bearing in mind that the travellers were comparing the manufactures
of one country with another in their precise records, which excited
European interest in regard to their statistic and economic value,
the praise of the Royal Copenhagen porcelain makes the more pleasant
reading. "The Copenhagen porcelain is less glassy than that of China.
The paste of the biscuit is lighter and closer than that of the Saxon
porcelain, the white keeps its colour better, and it is easier to wash.
In short, the whole of this manufacture is perfectly well understood,
and carried on with great spirit and diligence. It has only been
established thirteen years, and at the end of four the storehouses
were already filled with a variety of articles. We saw some flutes,
for which they asked seventy rix-dollars each. These are very just in
tune, but too heavy to be played upon conveniently; they are likewise
astonishingly brittle. We were also shown vases two and a half feet
high most beautifully painted by Camrath."

The writer makes one extraordinary statement, which goes to show that
the finest works were made for rich people, and were not seen by the
Danish people in general. "The Copenhagen porcelain is very little
known even in Denmark; for the original expenses of a manufacture of
this nature are such, that it must necessarily be sold very dear: it is
indeed more so at present than the Saxon china; but it is imagined the
price will be lowered in a short time."

The number of workmen employed at the factory at the time of this
inspection was three hundred, "forty of whom were for the painting part
of the business, which we thought but few for that important branch."

In regard to the director, Müller, himself, some trenchant criticisms
are made as to the poor recognition the State had given to so great
a potter. In other factories there were different directors, one for
the body and glaze, another for the ovens and firing, a third for the
artistic form, and a fourth for the painting and gilding, all of whom
were paid at a high rate. "But here M. Müller, an excellent chemist,
acts himself in these various departments, and is very shabbily paid,
having only a salary of 500 rix-dollars. He is also the original
inventor of this manufacture, and when it is known that he was never
out of Copenhagen, and consequently could have had no model to go by,
it is inconceivable to what a degree of perfection he has brought it,
and that, too, entirely from his own enlightened genius, without the
smallest foreign assistance."

[Illustration: SUCRIER WITH COVER, AND CUP.

With deep-blue bands having rich and elaborate gilding. _Sucrier_ with
panel inscribed _Guds Frücht_, figure representing Harvest. Cup with
convolvulus painted in natural colours.

(_At Dansk Folke Museum, Copenhagen._)]

Concerning the salary of Müller of 500 rix-dollars per annum,
it is noteworthy to observe that at that time the retail price in
Copenhagen of a complete afternoon service, consisting of six chocolate
cups with handles, twelve coffee cups, coffee-pot, teapot and dish,
sugar dish, tea caddy and cream jug, was 19 rix-dollars 3 marks first
quality blue-and-white, and 26 rix-dollars 4 marks painted with natural
flowers. Müller's yearly labours were evidently reckoned as only worth
a score of such afternoon services. Hence the piquant strictures of the
foreign noblemen.

The point raised as to Müller not having had the smallest foreign
assistance may be dismissed as somewhat erroneous. There was Anton Carl
Luplau, who was at the Fürstenberg factory for eighteen years, and who
came to Copenhagen in 1776; Johan Christoph Ba er, who was born in
Nuremberg, and came to Copenhagen in 1768, when he was thirty years
old; Peter Heinrich Benjamin Lehmann, who was a native of Hamburg, and
came to Copenhagen from the Berlin factory in 1780, and was naturalized
in 1781; Carl Fridrich Thomaschefsky, who worked a short time at the
factory; and Martin Cadewitz, who served eleven years and died in 1791.
But in 1781, of two hundred persons employed at the factory only ten
were foreigners.

As to whether Müller ever left Copenhagen the Count de Boisgelin adds
a footnote: "According to M. Catteau, this was not the fact; we only
repeat what the man told us was the case." The work referred to is
_Le Tableau des Etats Dannois envisagés sous le Rapport du Mécanisme
Social, par Jean Pierre Catteau_, printed in Paris in 1802 in three
volumes.

It is rather an interesting point, but the evidence is against de
Boisgelin, for Müller not only visited Brunswick when he entered into
negotiations with Luplau to enter the Danish service, but at a slightly
earlier date he made a tour of the German factories--in an assumed
name, as some accounts go. That he made good use of his time is amply
borne out by the results he achieved in so short a space of time on his
return to his native land.

There is nothing to detract from the originality and inventiveness
of his work. The personality of his genius illuminates the work
of the factory. He experienced as many reverses of fortune as did
Bernard Palissy, and battled against adverse circumstances with no
less indomitable spirit. He conquered technical difficulties, and
experimented with clays and bodies and glazes and pigments with hardly
less assiduity than did Josiah Wedgwood.

=A National Style Created.=--No art is wholly independent in origin
or of sporadic growth. In the early days and the initial stages it
must always be derivative. In ceramic art this applies either to form
or decoration, often to both. The form and decoration of Chinese
blue-and-white porcelain was the basis of the school of Delft faience.
The scale pattern and the panel with exotic birds were slavishly
adopted at Sèvres from Oriental prototypes. Similarly the older
European factories impressed their styles upon factories of a later
growth. The crowd of German factories came under the direct influence
of Meissen in design as well as in technique. It is a significant fact
that Copenhagen porcelain under Müller's guiding spirit developed
an original style from the first establishment of the factory. This
achievement should be placed to Müller's credit in determining his
position among European potters. He did something more than assimilate
the technique of Meissen in his hard paste, and the fact that he was
the first man to make real porcelain in Denmark is only a part of the
honour due to him. He created what was far more difficult--a national
style.

Influences there undoubtedly were bearing on the form and on the style
of decoration employed at Copenhagen. Luplau had little technique to
learn. He came as a maturely trained modeller from Fürstenberg, which
accounts for the fact that busts and statuettes were produced at a much
earlier date in the history of the Copenhagen than in a factory having
slowly to train its modellers. But undoubtedly a close examination of
the porcelain of the Müller period exhibits the fact that there was a
fine reticence applied to the form and the decoration which stands out
in strong contrast to the extravagances and reckless prodigality of
ornament employed by factories with older traditions. The new factory
at Copenhagen was endowed with a sense of beauty from the first. The
rococo style prevalent then at Meissen and dominating art is seldom
found in old Danish porcelain; now and again its presence is noticeable
and indicates that the work is of the early experimental days. But
Copenhagen created a characteristic and natural style of its own, not
only in the choice of Danish or Norwegian subjects, but in its intense
love of nature and of simple forms.

The whole series of fine _pot-pourri_ vases with natural flowers in
relief is essentially different from Meissen examples where the vase is
overloaded with fancifully modelled flowers and leaves. The graceful
form and subdued decoration of Copenhagen stand out in effective
contrast.

Moreover, the flowers themselves were evidently copied direct from
nature, and are executed with such skill and refinement that they still
stand as ideals of technical and artistic perfection.

In regard to the modelling of figures, especially those in costume,
the reticence of Copenhagen is noticeable in comparison with the
_outré_ cavaliers and dames in crinolines of the Saxon and other
factories. The subdued colouring and the simple charm of the Danish
figures places them in a gallery of their own. Nor must this be
mistaken for insipidity or weakness of design. Judged by the highest
canons of art, the quality of such creations indicates complete control
and mastery of technique, and art in due subjection.

The outburst of strong national intensity, love of nature, breadth of
conception, and virility of execution lasted at the most for twenty
years. The verse on a plate:--

    _Enhver sin Sæk til Möllen bærer
    Hvor tungt den ham end og besværer:_

which may be turned into English:--

    Each man to the mill must bear his sack
    Although the load may break his back--

was the leading precept of the staff under Müller. All worked together
with single-heartedness of purpose, and the result is the admiration
of all who love ceramic art, purposeful, and instinct with grace and
dignity.

=The Diversity of Designs.=--The illustrations accompanying this
chapter will show the range of subjects executed under the masterly
_régime_ of Müller. At first vases and services for royal use were
made, but as soon as the retail establishment in 1780 enabled persons
outside the royal _entourage_ to purchase the porcelain, the feet of
the factory were set on a rock. Similar forms to those embellished with
royal ciphers and monograms and portraits were subsequently employed
for persons of lesser degree.

The portrait of Müller shows him to have been a keen, virile,
determined man, as we know, of endless resources, and possessed of
abnormal energy. In less than twenty years there had been a constant
and untiring enthusiasm in order to bring the factory to such
perfection that it would be able to compete with the older and larger
factories of Meissen, Berlin, and Sèvres. Perhaps this object was not
achieved, inasmuch as the little factory did not enter into the lists
to win European approval, but it succeeded in developing a national
style, and this in spite of the fact that at the early stages it worked
on foreign suggestion and employed foreign artists. Owing to the crowd
of smaller factories at that date assimilating the technique and
copying the designs of Meissen, it has come to be erroneously believed,
owing to the looseness of generalization by writers on the subject and
the absence of detailed study of Copenhagen porcelain of that period,
that the Danish factory was another echo of Meissen or Berlin. The
contemporary opinion of the two French counts, men of practised skill
in observation and keen critics in regard to comparing the state of
technique and conditions of manufacture of one country with another,
comes as a complete refutation to the belief that Copenhagen was then
in the second rank.

In regard to Müller's technical achievements, they stand to this day
as a permanent record of his mastery of his art. The new body which he
invented and called "virgin paste" is of a clear dazzling white, and
is covered with a glaze transparent and smooth as polished crystal,
tinted with the green of the sea; this glaze enhanced the beauty of the
porcelain. Considering the impure materials then available, and the
primitive working methods (for instance, fuel used at that time was
wood, in poles 10 feet long of pine and fir), the perfection and beauty
of the results demand profound admiration. Even with the aid of modern
technology and chemistry it has not yet been found possible at the
factory to produce porcelain equal in every respect to the old Müller
period.

[Illustration: PASTILLE BURNER AND COVER.

On tripod stand with modelled dolphins as supports. Moulded cherub
heads, and gilded banded wreath in high relief. Perforated cover
surmounted by gilded pine-cone ornament.]

The diverse character of the output was stupendous. It was rich in
design, varied and original in invention, virile in modelling, and
national in spirit. The beautiful body invented by Müller had its
decoration with his perfected overglaze colours, green and blue and
purple. In regard to gilding, the artistic ideal seems to have been
attained. It is not possible to convey as illustrations in this volume
the extraordinary variety and beauty exhibited in this field. In the
cups and saucers herein illustrated, the fine quality of the designs
is lost in translation, but these borders of deep blue enriched with
gilded designs of the most exquisite character are something to marvel
at in connection with the work of the Müller period.

The creations of the factory cover a wide range. The versatility of
the modellers and the artists is pronouncedly marked. It bespeaks a
great and prolific period when ideas were not lacking. Evidently there
was no great searching after novelty, the gold was not beaten thin,
apparently there was a profusion of intellectual force behind the
factory. The difference is noticeable as soon as the great period is
passed, when one falls on barren ways and thinly eked out inventions,
the long years of the dreary twilight.

The love of landscape especially appealed to Copenhagen. The colours of
the ceramic artist have limitations peculiarly their own. Atmosphere is
rare in overglaze painting. There is a tendency to prettiness and an
absence of breadth. But with pigments so refractory there are instances
of work surprisingly powerful. Single colour scenes fare best, and
there is one example in purple, poor enough medium, which has qualities
almost suggesting the strength of a Dutch etching, as shown on a cup
and saucer in the _Dansk Folke Museum_. The picturesque in colour finds
its exposition in two octagonal dishes with sporting subjects. The one
shows a man with a hound (illustrated, p. 93), and the other a man with
a red coat engaged in the pastime of hawking.

Vases with portraits secured their patrons. There is one at the
_Kunstindustri Museum_ at Bergen; with the portrait of G. W. Rabener,
born at Leipsic in 1714 and died in 1771, the friend of Klopstock, and
the good-humoured satirist of German _bourgeois_ society.

[Illustration: OCTAGONAL DISH.

With figure subject, Huntsman with hound, finely painted in colours.
Blue border with rich gold decoration.]

Apart from colour and decoration, there is the fine modelling.
The symmetry of the more important vases, instinct with decorative
qualities of the highest order, having ornament in relief, moulded
garlands, gay Cupids, or mask handles of some wood-god, is always
paramount. Rarely is there a false note.

To form and the mastery of the difficulties and the due observance of
the technique of the potter, it is necessary to devote another chapter
in which the illustrations convey sufficient evidence to show that
projecting limbs and fantastic shapes more suitable to the metal-worker
were eschewed at Copenhagen. The essentials of ceramics were never lost
sight of by the band of modellers working under Müller.

=National Sentiment.=--There is a vein of sentiment, very pleasing and
very piquant, running through much of the work of this period. It is
the under-note of the potter, who, as other potters of other nations
have before him, desired to convey a written message as well as the
message in line, in colour, and in beauty of form that he set before
his generation. Centuries before Müller, the Chinese potter revelled
in his inscriptions. Potters the world over apparently are poets. On
an old Chinese porcelain vase painted in blue, with a garden scene by
moonlight, the following inscription in Chinese is found:--

"Heaven and earth are the associates of creation, as light and
darkness are the passing guests of a hundred generations. Fleeting
life is like a dream; how long do we enjoy it? It was this knowledge
that made men in the old days trim the midnight lamp. And now Yang
Chun invites us with smoke to illuminate the world with literature, to
associate the fragrant gardens of the peach and the plum, and to talk
of happiness. All graciously join me, and as they chant and sing, I
alone am ashamed; they become vivacious, I in solitude rejoice. With
loud talk they grow merry; a scholar's feast is spread, and sitting
amid the flowers we pass the goblet quickly and drink till we are
drunken. When the moon is not in its splendour, how can one expatiate
on its ecstasy? But if my verses are not perfect I am fined the
customary gold and the embarrassing wine."

Here is the Chinese potter--almost Viking-like in his song of the
wine-cup in place of the wassail-bowl. Or shall it be the Persian
astronomer-poet Omar Khayyám with his--

    The Grape that can with Logic absolute
    The Two-and-seventy jarring Sects confute:
      The subtle Alchemist that in a Trice
    Life's leaden Metal into Gold transmute.

The Staffordshire potters to a man loved a rhymed couplet on a jug
or mug or punch-bowl, and their crude efforts amuse the latter-day
collector. Their subjects were varied in character--loyalty, naval
victories, courtship, and conviviality, with a smack of religion, as,
for instance:--

    Drink to live and live to die
    That you may live eternally.

[Illustration: TRAY.

With oval panel with landscape painted in deep green. Wreaths around
panel in purple. Finely gilded at borders. Painted by Elias Meyer.

Given by Frederik VI to Pastor Mandal, Sörum, Norway, 1790.

(_At the Kunstindustri Museum_, _Copenhagen_.)]

There are many pretty sentiments found on Müller's ware. We have
already quoted one (p. 87), and there are many mottoes inscribed in
Danish on the porcelain of his period. There is the long inscription on
the cup with his portrait (see p. 69), and there are others which we
have translated as follows:--

    Art bends nature to herself that clay
    By magic is transformed to gold alway;

and an inscription on another example, translated runs:--

    Long live the King, and glorious be his reign;
    Long live ourselves to drink this toast again.

In the collection at Rosenborg Castle there is a cup and saucer upon
which the letter F is painted in forget-me-nots. It is dated November
22, 1797, with this inscription:--

    _Uforglemmelige ungdomsaar for mig!_
    (Years of youth, unforgettable for me!)

We wonder for whom this initial F stands. The permanently abiding
sentiment enshrined behind the glass case is to-day as fresh as the
forget-me-nots. What romance lies hidden in these four Danish words
burnt into the clay? But the records are silent, and F the giver or
the receiver is turned into dust, while the potter's clay stands to
symbolize an old-world story of the days when youthful ambitions and
dreams lit up the memory.


TABLE OF MARKS[5]

  Found on Royal Copenhagen porcelain with decoration painted overglaze
      of the Frantz Heinrich Müller period (1775-1801).

[5] These marks are strictly copyright.

These signatures and initials of painters and modellers, either painted
or incised, are found in conjunction with the usual factory mark of the
three blue lines.


GENERAL

The usual Factory Mark, in blue, found alone or in addition to
painter's or modeller's signature or initials.

This mark was adopted at the suggestion of Queen Juliane Marie in 1775,
and symbolizes the three waterways of Denmark--the Sound, and the Great
and Little Belts.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

This mark has been used on all porcelain made at the Royal Copenhagen
Factory, both with overglaze and underglaze painted decoration, since
that date.

N.B.--From 1773-1775 the porcelain of the Copenhagen factory made by
Müller bore no mark.

Signature of Anton Carl Luplau, who came to Copenhagen in 1776, and
died in 1795.

A _Bust of Queen Juliane Marie_ at Rosenborg Castle bears this
signature on base:--

[Illustration]

Signature of Hans Clio, who was working at the factory prior to 1779,
and who died in 1786.

[Illustration]

Peter Heinrich Benjamin Lehmann. Came to the factory in 1780. Died
1808. Painter of landscapes, figures, and birds.

[Illustration]

Signature of Hans Christopher Ondrup (1779-1787). Sometimes signed
_Ondrup mahlt (Ondrup painted it)_. Painted signature frequently in red.

This signature in full has been traced from an example in the
collection of Count Chr. Danneskjold-Samsöe, at Gissenfeldt.

[Illustration]

Signature of Andreas Hald (1781-1797), modeller and sculptor.
Frequently marked his pieces in full or with initials =AH= incised. In
some instances his initials are painted in blue on side of base, as in
Figure of Flute Player (illustrated, p. 127).

[Illustration]

Jesper Johansen Holm. Born 1747. Member of Royal Academy. Incised
mark, =HOLM 1780= on _Statuette_ at _National Museum_, Stockholm. (See
illustration, p. 115.) =I HOLM 1781= incised marked on a _Bust of
Prince Frederik_ at _Kunstindustri Museum_, Copenhagen.

[Illustration]

Signature of Johan Christoph Ba er. Came to Copenhagen in 1768. Died
1812. Landscape painter, followed the style of Johann Christoph
Dietsche, of Nuremberg (1710-1769). Engaged on painting the flowers in
the _Flora Danica_ service.

[Illustration]

The mark of Jacob Schmidt, modeller and sculptor. He was, in 1779,
a pupil at the factory in his fourteenth year. He died in 1807. Many
of his pieces have his initials incised. An example at the _Dansk
Folke Museum_, Copenhagen, has this mark together with the three lines
_incised_, which is an exceedingly rare mark.

[Illustration]

Incised mark on a cream cup and cover at the _Kunstindustri Museum_,
Copenhagen, decorated with purple flowers and rococo ornamentation,
gilded, and having scale-pattern in red. This mark (signifying that
the piece belongs to the Christian VII era) is unusual. This may be
conjectured to be a specimen made by Müller prior to 1775, that is,
before the adoption of the mark of the three blue lines.

[Illustration]

The incised mark of Hans Meehl, who was a modeller at the factory in
1791. This mark is found on a polychrome _Figure of a Man_ in national
costume (_Norsk Bjergmund_), at the _Kunstindustri Museum_, Copenhagen.

[Illustration]

This mark is incised on the base of a polychrome figure of a _Woman
with Hens_ at the _Kunstindustri Museum_, Copenhagen.

[Illustration]


LIST OF LEADING PAINTERS AND MODELLERS[6]

  Who worked at the Royal factory under the Direction of Frantz
      Heinrich Müller (1773-1801).

[6] For the leading facts contained herein, I am indebted to Professor
Karl Madsen in his article in _Tidsskrift for Kunstindustri_, 1893.

ANTON CARL LUPLAU. 1776-1795.

    Was at the Fürstenberg factory for eighteen years. Müller
    visited Luplau at Brunswick in 1776, and on November 14th an
    agreement was signed, and Luplau joined the Copenhagen factory as
    modelling-master. He died in 1795. He was a perfect craftsman. Many
    of his pieces were signed, e.g. the Bust of Queen Juliane Marie.
    Luplau made many of the models for the _Flora Danica_ service, and
    executed 20 Norwegian types after the well-known sandstone figures
    at Fredensborg.

CLAUS TVEDE. 1775-1783.

    Sculptor and modeller at the factory. He is supposed to have made
    the Statuette of the Hereditary Prince Frederik after the design
    by Ludovico Grossi, which piece bears the initials of the modeller
    Andreas Hald.

JOHAN CHRISTOPH BAŸER. 1776-1812.

    Born in Nuremberg 1738. Came to Denmark in 1768. Agreement signed
    on November 16, 1776, when he entered the service of the factory.
    He died in his seventy-fifth year, in 1812. Landscape painter;
    followed the style of Johann Christoph Dietsche, Nuremberg
    landscape painter (1710-1769). Executed drawings for Holmskjold's
    book on _Danish Fungi_. Entrusted with the work of flower painting
    on the _Flora Danica_ service.

HANS CLIO. Working before 1779. Died in 1786.

    Painter. Appointed drawing-master to train the pupils at the
    factory. His signature appears on some of the porcelain with
    landscapes painted by him.

LARS HANSEN. 1777-1800.

    Born in 1739. In 1777 he is noted as being one of the best painters
    in blue underglaze ware. He died in 1800.

JACOB SCHMIDT. 1779-1807.

    Born in 1764. Modeller and sculptor. At factory in 1779 as pupil
    in modelling in his fourteenth year. Many of his pieces are marked
    with his initials incised.

HANS CHRISTOPH ONDRUP. 1779-1787.

    Painter. His signature, or his initials, painted in red, is found
    on several pieces.

PETER HEINRICH BENJAMIN LEHMANN. 1780-1808.

    Born in 1752 at Hamburg. Came to the factory from Berlin in 1780.
    Was naturalized in 1781 and died in 1808. He was a painter of
    landscapes, figures, and birds.

G. KALLEBERG. 1780-1810.

    Modeller of figures and _repoussé_ worker. He appears to have had a
    large share in the production of figures and moulds, and there is
    presumptive evidence that his work was of a superlative character.

JESPER JOHANSEN HOLM. 1780-1802.

    Modeller. Born in 1747. Member of the Royal Academy. Trained by
    Wiedevelt, the sculptor. His statuettes are finely executed. See _A
    Hero_ (with =I HOLM 1780= incised mark), illustrated, p. 115, at
    National Museum, Stockholm. He became model-master in 1802.

ABILDGAARD. 1780-

    Danish artist and sculptor, returned to Copenhagen from Continental
    travels in 1777, and brought new impulses. Consulted as adviser to
    factory in regard to art matters and correctness of modelling.

MARTIN CADEWITZ. 1780-1791.

    Served eleven years at factory. Died in 1791.

JOHAN CAMRATH, _Senior_. 1780-1796.

    Portrait painter. Executed work for the factory till 1796. Died
    in 1814, in his seventy-sixth year. He was engaged on fine vases,
    and painted grey medallion panel portraits of Queen Juliane Marie,
    and other royalties, for important pieces. There is a small cup
    at Rosenborg Castle with the portrait of P. A. Heiberg painted by
    him. He was not permanently at the factory, but undertook work of a
    highly artistic nature.

NICOLAJ CHRISTIAN FAXOE. 1783-1810.

    Born in 1762. Pupil at the factory in painting, 1783. Flower
    painter. Worked at the factory till his death in 1810.

SÖREN PREUS. 1784-

    Modeller. Executed the delicate flowers in relief on vases,
    baskets, and groups. The vases with Cupids and garlands, and the
    magnificent vase, with portrait of Queen Juliane Marie painted by
    Camrath, having a Cupid seated on body of vase amidst a garland of
    exquisitely moulded flowers and two lions finely modelled on cover,
    is the work of Sören Preus.

    The baskets of flowers and bouquets and ornaments in the dessert
    centre pieces of the _Flora Danica_ service suggest his master-hand.

ELIAS MEYER. 1785-1809.

    Born in 1763 at Copenhagen, trained at Dresden. Flower and
    landscape painter. He occasionally marked pieces with his name. His
    work is not in the first flight. He died in 1809 as member of the
    Royal Academy.

M. MEYER. 1784-1792.

    This artist was mentioned in conjunction with Camrath by Count
    Louis de Boisgelin, who visited the factory thirteen years after
    it had been founded. M. Meyer "is much esteemed for the beauty of
    his designs." It appears that both he and Camrath were not actually
    in the factory service on a fixed salary, but received payment for
    each piece executed.

ANDREAS HALD. 1781-1797.

    Modeller and sculptor. This artist modelled a number of gracefully
    conceived figures. He frequently signed his work either A. Hald or
    with initials, incised, sometimes initials painted in blue, as on
    figure of _Flute Player_. See illustration, p. 127.

JOHAN ARENTZ. 1786-1796.

N. BAU. 1791-1820.

    Landscape painter, animals and figures, _genre_ subjects of
    peasants, and also silhouettes. Bau was the head painter from 1812.
    He died in 1820.

    Many of his landscape subjects are painted in purple.

JOHANNES LUDVIG CAMRATH, _Junior_. 1794-

    Flower and fruit painter. Born in 1779. Became pupil at factory in
    1794. Died in 1849.

CARL FRIDRICH THOMASCHEFSKY. 1780-

    This painter, originally trained at Berlin, worked only a short
    time at the factory. A colleague of Lehmann.

RABEN SVARDAHLYN. HANS JACOB HANSEN. CHRISTIAN AHRENSBORG. MATTHIAS
WOLSTRUP. SCHALTZ.

    These painters were engaged on the underglaze mussel-blue painted
    ware during the Müller _régime_, together with Lars Hansen, who, in
    1777, was considered the leading painter in this style.




CHAPTER IV

FIGURE SUBJECTS AND GROUPS

(1780-1820)




CHAPTER IV

FIGURE SUBJECTS AND GROUPS

(1780-1820)

  The inauguration of new impulses, 1780--Luplau,
      the modelling-master--The figure subjects of
      Kalleberg--Classification of figure subjects--Old Copenhagen
      figures, their national character--The last days of Müller.


Apart from the royal busts and statuettes, the sumptuous vases with
portraits of royalties, and the magnificent services made for royal use
or for some important personage, culminating in the great and extensive
_Flora Danica_ service, there were other examples, notably figure
subjects and groups, often of a minor character, and vases and services
of less splendour in their decoration but not of inferior character.

The date of these may be determined as subsequent to the year 1780,
when a retail establishment was opened in Copenhagen in the heyday of
Müller's triumph, for the sale of the factory productions. An outburst
of popular feeling hailed this adventure with delight. The chronicles
of the time are full of the subject. Hitherto great and important
pieces were made under the Court patronage of Queen Juliane Marie and
of Prince Frederik, her son, and important subjects were executed,
giving to this period a character and dignity not surpassed by many
of the older factories. But the royal factory now became the national
factory. Henceforth merchants, burghers, the professional classes, and
the Danish public in general were enabled to see a permanent exhibition
of the ware of the Royal Porcelain Factory, and to purchase or give
orders for a national ware which, naturally, was supplanting the use
of all others in the country. In the year 1790 the importation of any
foreign porcelain save Chinese was prohibited by law.

From 1780 to 1790 one may expect to find the factory in full enjoyment
of success, particularly in regard to its manufacture and sale
of utilitarian blue fluted services, underglaze painted, and of
small figures and vases, overglaze painted, of a less magnificent
character, designed for use and ornament in the home rather than
representative of types more fitted for presents to foreign princes and
plenipotentiaries. In 1790 Müller was fifty-eight years of age. In 1801
he had retired from the factory.

This chapter, while including important figures and groups, deals
with types of a class which may be termed as in the second flight
of Müller's artistic triumphs, and be it said much of the work is
contemporary with more ambitious creations equal in character to some
of the finest.

[ILLUSTRATION: STATUETTE ENTITLED _A HERO_.

With incised Mark HOLM/1780 and three blue lines painted.

Height 12-1/5 inches.

(_At the National Museum, Stockholm._)]

As many of these minor pieces are dated and others have the signature
of the artist or modeller, it is possible to arrive, with some degree
of accuracy, at the period of their manufacture. Contemporary with
all these overglaze painted examples of the factory one must not lose
sight of the fact that the mussel-blue underglaze painted ware was
continuously being made. New forms were being added, and its decoration
with the "Danish pattern" adhered closely to the original floral
_motif_ now perennial to the ware.

=Luplau, the Modelling Master.=--In regarding the figure subjects,
it must be borne in mind that the foreign assistance which Müller
called in at the inception of the factory had not a little influence
on the early and sure production of figures which could not have been
attempted without experienced supervision. Under Anton Carl Luplau, the
modelling-master who came to Copenhagen from the Fürstenberg factory,
where he had spent eighteen years, the early stages of the Copenhagen
modelling show a completer mastery of the technique than is usually
exhibited by so young a factory.

But design and modelling, excellent though they undoubtedly were in
the hands of Luplau, were only factors in the problem towards perfected
results. The body, the glaze, and the colours were Müller's. Nor is it
to be supposed that Luplau contributed more than the idea, practical
without doubt, but it is improbable that he carried his supervision
beyond the plastic stages. All credit is due to him for instilling
the principles of fine lines and graceful forms into the minds of the
young potters. But it was Müller by day and by night, with long vigils,
often all night, at the ovens with his workmen whom he was training to
control the caprice of the furnace, who seized the situation and gladly
profited by experience in his uphill struggle to establish his factory
in the face of all difficulties. Müller had the genius of "moulding
men in plastic circumstance." Nor was Luplau the swan he is sometimes
thought to have been. There is a suggestion in one of Müller's letters
to the board of management of the factory which illuminates the inner
history. Speaking of Luplau, and probably the old story--the cost of
production--he says: "On the contrary, he demands extra payment for
any work which he does himself, and as the factory cannot afford this,
most of the figures and moulds are made by Kalleberg, and in this work
Luplau appears to take a very small share."

[Illustration: TWO FIGURES OF SEA HORSES.

Painted in colours, brown predominating on a white ground. Each marked
with three blue lines. Height 3-3/4 inches. Length 6-3/10 inches.

(_In the National Museum, Stockholm._)]

=The Figure Subjects of Kalleberg.=--The fertility of the early
Copenhagen period when masterpieces, full of charm and perfect in
style, rapidly appeared one after another in a short but crowded
period, has puzzled students of the old period. To accept Luplau as
the creator of them all, is to believe him classic and precise, and
at the same moment capable of transforming his style into elegant,
restrained creations of gaiety and fanciful forms in due subjection. To
omit the subtle and critical examination of style is to fall into the
pit which contains those curious mortals who believe the exact, terse,
and laboured prose of Bacon to be by the author of _A Midsummer Night's
Dream_ and _Hamlet_. To such, it is possible to credit Julius Cæsar
with having written the ode of Horatius Flaccus to _Lyde_.

There is some mystery as to the designer of the dancing figures,
the flute-player, the lady at the tea-table, the Copenhagen group,
the Norwegian dalemen in Fredensborg, the mountain-men, and certain
dainty Cupids. They differ entirely from Laplau's productions in every
respect, and stand far above them in artistic merit. The late Professor
Krohn, whose patient researches, on this and other vexed questions
concerning old Copenhagen porcelain, were unfortunately broken off by
his untimely death, was of the opinion that these figure subjects were
the work of the _repoussé_ worker Kalleberg. Authentic confirmation is
lacking, other than the letter above quoted. Until further evidence is
forthcoming and further investigations are made into the Müller period,
we must accept the authentic pronouncement by Müller as the last word
on the subject.

In regard to the employment of foreigners, it is certain that the
experiment was not a success. Five workmen were inveigled from Meissen
in 1776. Out of the five, probably induced by monetary considerations
to quit the Meissen factory, two did not make an appearance in
Copenhagen. Of the three who came, it seems that only one showed any
great talent. It would appear, too, that they exhibited an arrogance
that stirred up strife in the factory. They received higher wages
than the Danish workmen and began to assume correspondingly superior
manners, with the belief that the factory could not proceed without
them. But Müller speedily put an end to this state of affairs by
closing the factory gates against them, and when they attempted to
break in, he had them turned out by force. With these experiences in
mind, it is not surprising that when, at a later date, some English
workmen from the Wedgwood factory desired employment, they received
scanty consideration.

[Illustration: FIGURE GROUP (ONE OF A PAIR).

Painted in overglaze colours. Period 1780-1790. Marked with three blue
lines. Height 9-1/5 inches.

(_From the collection of the late Hr. B. Hirschsprüng_)]

=Classification of Figure Subjects.=--The figure subjects under
examination in this chapter may be divided into the following groups:--

  Portrait Busts and Statuettes and Classic figures, in biscuit--

      such as those of Queen Juliane Marie and the Hereditary Prince
      Frederik, and the statuette of _A Hero_ at the National Museum,
      Stockholm (illustrated, p. 115)

  Ornamental subjects, in white--

      such as the centre-piece with the supporting Cupids at the _Dansk
      Folke Museum_, Copenhagen, and the remarkably fine vases, 4 feet
      high, at Frederiksborg, having powerfully modelled groups of
      female classic figures.

  Classic figures and subjects, decorated in colours, overglaze--

      such as the group _Flora and Minerva_ by Jacob Schmidt and _Sea
      Horses_ at the National Museum, Stockholm (illustrated, p. 119).

  Romantic subjects in costume, decorated in colours, overglaze--

      such as _Lovers with Cupid and Garlands_ (illustrated, p. 123),
      and small figures of women and children in fanciful costume.

      There is at Frederiksborg Castle a group--_Chinese Woman and
      Chinaman_, who is offering her a basket of fruit. This Oriental
      subject is very rare. Marked with three lines underglaze in blue,
      but the yellow overglaze pigment on base has turned the blue into
      three _green_ lines.

  Figure subjects in correct contemporary costume--practically a
    ceramic gallery faithfully reflecting the social character of the
    period--

      such as the _Flute Player_, the _Lady and Gentleman dancing_,
      the _Beggar_, and an especially fine series of peasant types
      in old costume, engaged at their various vocations--e.g. two
      groups of _Norwegian Miners_, with black costume and green
      caps, with C7 in gold (at Frederiksborg Castle). The _Woman
      with Hens_, in Norwegian costume, a _Market Woman with Fowls_,
      a _Lobster-seller_, _Woman selling Fruit_, _Woman milking Cow_.
      Figures in naval and military uniform, and many others.

=Old Copenhagen Figures--their National Character.=--In regard to the
series of figures in contemporary costume, there is an air about them
which stamps them at once as being the work of the old Copenhagen
factory. They are practically portrait studies, with that added touch
of poetic charm which fits them for their place among the gods of the
china cabinet.

They challenge comparison with the work of other European
factories. Kändler, the modeller at Meissen, in what is styled the
_Krinolinengruppen_ period in mid eighteenth-century days, produced
figures of lovers and ladies in rich costumes. They belong to that
impossible world of the china-shelf, of shepherds and shepherdesses
and bending cavaliers and gay ladies, conjured up in the fertile brain
of the potter. They invaded France and they conquered England in the
glorious days of Derby and Chelsea. But with a few notable exceptions
they did not penetrate to Copenhagen.

[Illustration: FIGURES.

  Old woman supplicating alms.      Man playing flute.

Marks.--A.H. incised on base, and A.H. painted in blue at side of base.
Height 6-3/8 inches.

(_At the Dansk Folke Museum, Copenhagen._)]

The groups of _Lovers with Cupids_ and chains of roses are two
examples of this romantic movement which came into the world of
ceramics, a reflex of the decorative art of fashionable Court painters,
who invented a topsy-turvy world of make-believe.

The quiet strength and the subdued restraint of the old Copenhagen
figures stand out in contrast to this outburst of fanciful exuberance.
The note of fidelity is as apparent in the figures in costume of the
Müller period as it is noticeable in regard to floral decorations and
modelled foliage taken direct from nature. Nor does this betray a want
of imagination or a lack of ideality in choice of figure subjects. If
it be classic, there is poetry in the statuette of _A Hero_, or a loose
rein is given by the modeller to his _Sea Horses_, a poet's vision of
the sea rollers leaping shore-wards from the Baltic. The fashion for
the romantic did eventually tinge the Copenhagen _atelier_. Some of the
little figures are graceful, retiring, modest examples of the movement.
It is true they are decked in impossible costumes, but the mode has in
the transplantation acquired simplicity and reticence. Some of them
suggest, in porcelain, the quaint charm of Kate Greenaway's world of
picturesque children.

Of the gallery of contemporary life the Copenhagen figures, in
the main, are faithful likenesses. The dancing cavalier and lady
(see _Frontispiece_) represent persons who actually did dance as
they are modelled. There is nothing added except that touch of the
modeller's genius in catching the rhythmical pose of the poetry of
motion which crystallizes them as a work of art. The _Flute Player_ is
equally caught in the act, natural and unobtrusive. There is nothing
affected in his attitude or in his costume (illustrated, p. 127). It
is such traits as these which endear the old Copenhagen figures to
connoisseurs. The glaze is rich and liquid and the colours are subdued
in tone and appeal to lovers of subtlety in art. Whatever extraneous
influences in art press upon the work of the Danish potters, there is a
process of refining which they seemingly undergo, and in so doing

                Suffer a sea change
    Into something rich and strange.

As may be imagined, these old-world figures are much treasured by
Danish collectors, who realize that they represent a national phase of
art and form a record of quaint and forgotten costume. The sellers in
the market-place, the women with fowls, the fisherman with the striped
jersey and shiny hat familiar in old prints of our own sailormen, and
the Admiral with his speaking trumpet--it might be the great Fischer
himself, of the days when fleets were sweeping the North Sea and the
Baltic--come with peculiar associations from bygone days.

[Illustration: FIGURE GROUPS.

Market woman with Fruit and Lobster seller. Height 6-2/5 inches.]

[Illustration: FIGURES IN CONTEMPORARY NAVAL AND MILITARY UNIFORMS.

Decorated in colour.

(_From the collection of His Excellency the late M. de Bille._)]

=The Last Days of Müller.=--The illustrations herein given cover
this diverse field and serve to indicate the versatility of the
modellers who worked during the Müller period. The peasant types and
some of the smaller figures belong to the latter days of the Müller
_régime_. Although Müller retired from the factory in 1801, he kept
in touch with what was in progress. His hand may not have been on the
helm, but he had spirit enough left in his retirement to burst forth
with pungent criticisms upon the later methods pursued, and there is
no doubt the old veteran was frequently consulted by those upon whom
his mantle had fallen. The fiery spirit of Müller, proof against all
adversity, with the eye of the eagle saw across a longer space than men
of ordinary vision. "Everything which has been done after I left the
factory," growls out the fiery old man, "has been to its detriment."
And who shall say that his words were not true?

Müller had heard the guns booming in the Sound in 1801, he had seen
the havoc of bombardment by an alien fleet in 1807. His heart's desire,
his beloved factory, had been wrecked. A great man's treasure-house of
dreams had been devastated. The story of the ruin which overtook the
factory comes with stunning poignancy with the knowledge that owing to
the misery which followed the war the factory actually closed down in
1810, for a time, owing to the want of fuel. Years after the death of
Müller and the glories of his day had departed, a number of his oldest
models and moulds were found in a heap of shards stowed away in a loft
in the old factory. At the removal to the new factory at Frederiksberg
it was hardly thought worth while to carry them away.

Fortunately, this was done, and in spite of their wrecked condition,
loving hands have pieced them together. It is now happily possible to
reproduce faithfully some two hundred of the beautiful models of the
great days.

Frantz Heinrich Müller, the greatest potter of Denmark, is not dead,
although his ashes have lain in a nameless grave for nearly a century.
His memory still lies green in the hearts of those who love great
things finely conceived, great triumphs nobly won, and great dreams
perfectly consummated.




CHAPTER V

THE _FLORA DANICA_ SERVICE

(1790-1802)

MADE FOR CATHERINE II, EMPRESS OF RUSSIA




CHAPTER V

THE _FLORA DANICA_ SERVICE

(1790-1802)

_MADE FOR CATHERINE II, EMPRESS OF RUSSIA_

  The Crown Prince Frederik (afterwards Frederik VI) orders the
      Flora Danica service to be made--A period of twelve years
      occupied in making it--The taste of the Empress Catherine II of
      Russia--Theodor Holmskjold, the botanist--The service.


A separate chapter is devoted to the great service executed by the
Royal Copenhagen Factory during the years 1790 to 1802. It takes
a place with other great services, the masterpieces of old and
distinguished factories, such as the magnificent table service of _pâte
tendre_ Sèvres porcelain finished in 1778 for the Empress Catherine II
of Russia, consisting of about 750 pieces and costing some £13,200. The
Empress, it is interesting to read, considered this price exorbitant,
and a lengthy diplomatic correspondence ensued. This service was part
of the imperial collection at St. Petersburg. The celebrated Wedgwood
dinner service of earthenware made for Catherine II and delivered in
1774, consists of painted English scenery, depicting famous views and
noblemen's seats. This comprised over 950 pieces, and a portion of it
was exhibited in London in 1909 by Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood and Sons,
of Etruria, by permission of late His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of
Russia.[7]

[7] See illustrated descriptive Catalogue of Wedgwood Exhibition, 1909,
4to, 22 pp., by the present writer, also _Connoisseur_, December 1909.

The _Flora Danica_ service had as a patron the Crown Prince Frederik,
the son of Christian VII and Queen Caroline Matilda. In 1784 another
palace revolution had happened. The power of Queen Juliane Marie and
her son, the king's brother, was broken. Prince Frederik (afterwards
Frederik VI on the death of his father Christian VII, at the age of
fifty-nine, in 1808) assumed the presidency of the State Council, after
an unseemly struggle for the person of the imbecile king had taken
place between him and his uncle Frederik, Prince Hereditary, resulting
in the complete rout of the latter. The same day, April 14, 1784, the
Crown Prince Frederik was proclaimed Regent. From that moment the rule
of the Queen Dowager and her son Frederik was ended. She and her son
retained their apartments at Christiansborg Palace, and Fredensborg was
set apart for the use of Queen Juliane Marie. She lived in retirement
until her death in 1796. Her son Frederik refrained from meddling in
State affairs, and confined his attention to the welfare of art and
science.

Frederik VI, endeared to his people more than any other Danish king, in
spite of his military brusqueness, was as simple and frugal as our own
Farmer-King, George III, whose grandson he was. Frederik's blue cotton
umbrella is still exhibited as a relic in his apartments in Rosenborg
Castle, and at his death, in 1830, all classes mourned the loss of a
friend. Peasants bore the coffin of the old monarch tenderly to his
last resting-place at Roskilde.

He was twenty years of age when Count Marshal Bülow, with a fatherly
regard for the Crown Prince, and desirous of giving that touch of
refinement denied the youth by the naturalistic theories of Struensee
and the sterner methods of the Queen Dowager, took him from his
military duties to pay early morning visits to the Royal factory.
These glimpses into a world of artistry cannot have been other than
stimulating to the young prince. Struensee's Rousseau-like training
had made him a child of nature, and Juliane Marie had twisted him
into the cast-iron grooves of a stiff and formal Court etiquette. In
regard to art, he came at a time when the love of nature was becoming
paramount. The age was rapidly shaking off the artificial. Sated
with rococo ornament and with insipid and frivolous unrealities, the
pendulum swung to the natural and to the essentially simple. Straight
or shapely curved lines became the fashion. The period of _Louis Seize_
had succeeded the rococo taste of _Louis Quinze_ in Continental art.

=The Taste of the Empress Catherine of Russia.=--From 1784, when he
made his _coup d'état_, Frederik advisedly gave important orders to
the royal factory. In 1790 the _Flora Danica_ service was ordered by
the Crown Prince. It was not at first known for whom it was intended.
The old factory books record it as "_Perle model broge malet med
Flora Danica_" (Pearl body, colour painted with _Flora Danica_). As
the service progressed it transpired that it was to be presented to
Catherine II, Empress of Russia. The modern spirit was in the air,
the new style was realistic and tinged with a scientific _motif_;
moreover, it was to be a gift to a bluestocking. The Empress Catherine
essayed to make her Court the centre of letters and art. At great
cost she purchased the library of Diderot, and invited him to come
to St. Petersburg to be the custodian of his own collection. She
corresponded with Voltaire and she talked philosophy with Grimm, who,
in his celebrated _Correspondance Littéraire_, kept her informed of the
latest plays and books appearing in Paris. She established a French
theatre in St. Petersburg, and fined absentee courtiers fifty roubles
and sent her guards to bring in those who had failed to attend. French
visionaries looked to Russia as a land of promise. Voltaire never tired
of proclaiming that the Mohammedans should be driven out of Europe. And
the Empress Catherine was to be the chosen instrument. The philosopher
of Ferney, with his pen dipped in honey, writes:--

"_Si vous étiez souveraine de Constantinople votre majesté établirait
bien vite une belle académie grecque; on vous ferait une Catériniade;
les Zeuxis et les Phidias couvriraient la terre de vos images; la chute
de l'empire ottoman serait célébrée en grec; Athènes serait une de vos
capitales; la langue grecque deviendrait la langue universelle; tous
les negocians de la mer Egée demanderaient des passeports de votre
majesté._"

The great Danish service was therefore to be a fitting present for
so powerful a queen. For some twelve years the work was continued
uninterruptedly. At first it was designed for eighty persons, and in
1794 no less than 1,835 pieces were ready. The death of the Empress
Catherine II in 1796 precluded the service joining those of Sèvres and
Wedgwood in the imperial palace at St. Petersburg. But its manufacture
was still continued. In 1797 it had enlarged its dimensions, and was
fit for a hundred persons. In 1802 it was stopped. If counted in
English fashion, with lid, bowl, and stand as three pieces, the number
had grown to three thousand pieces, or some two thousand, counting
such vessels as one piece. The dessert service alone amounted to six
hundred and twenty-three pieces, consisting of basket vases, flower and
fruit stands, and, as is usual in dessert services, exceptionally fine
examples, elegant, finely modelled, and exquisitely painted.

The date of the completion of the _Flora Danica_ service practically
coincides with the date of the retirement of Müller from the
directorship of the factory, and therefore with this service ends the
great and prolific Müller period.

In the examination of the _Flora Danica_ service considerable attention
has been paid to the artistic and decorative results, but insufficient
study has been given to the causes which led to the inception of so
scientific an idea in regard to the record of the national flora on a
service of such importance.

[Illustration: FISH-DISH.

With drainer having modelled trout painted in natural colours. From
_Flora Danica_ service made for Catherine II, Empress of Russia.

(_At Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen._)]

=Theodor Holmskjold, the Botanist.=--The patron, as we have seen,
was the Crown Prince Frederik. The artist entrusted with the painting
of the work was A. C. Ba er, but the guiding spirit of the enterprise
undoubtedly was Theodor Holmskjold, who was a botanist of some
distinction, had studied under the world-renowned Von Linné at Upsala,
and was his favourite pupil. Holmskjold, a director of the factory
throughout the great Juliane Marie period, and almost to the end of
Müller's long control, brought the scientific spirit of exactitude into
the field of decorative art. Originally by name Holm, he took, after
his ennoblement in 1781, the title of Holmskjold. He was professor
of medicine and natural history at Söroe, the Danish Eton, where he
planned a botanical garden, and later he took part in the management
of the Botanical Gardens at Copenhagen. His work on _Danish Fungi_ is
distinguished by the artistic excellence of the illustrations, which
were made by Ba er. In 1767 he became postmaster-general of Copenhagen.
In 1772, the year of the masked ball at Christiansborg, we find him
cabinet secretary to Queen Juliane Marie. Undoubtedly at that time the
man of science put aside his dried specimens to join in the whirl of
politics and Court intrigue which ended in the seizure of Struensee
and Queen Matilda--the gallows-tree for the dictator and imprisonment
for Denmark's young queen. The classification of _fungi_ was seemingly
little enough preparation for the pinking of Court butterflies, when
plots of assassination were rife, and when the actors' heads were
not secure on their shoulders. But Holmskjold, together with another
student, Suhm, the historian, who came from his library and helped
to make history, ably acquitted himself. He was a trusted confidant
of Queen Juliane Marie. It was he who induced the queen to take up
Müller's company, and himself (then Holm) became one of the directors.

Long after Queen Juliane Marie's power had waned, we find him true to
his allegiance to her, as in 1792 he became chamberlain to her Court.
His connection with Müller was intimate. A widower in 1780, Müller
married Holm's somewhat elderly sister. In brother-in-law Holm Müller
found a good patron. His position at the Court, his relationship with
Müller, his intense desire to win renown for an enterprise to which he
had himself obtained the royal appellation, made him at once a powerful
and interested ally. He died in 1793, before the final completion of
the great service to which his influence had contributed so much,
but not before he had seen the establishment of the Royal Copenhagen
porcelain under the _régime_ of Queen Juliane Marie, his mistress,
attain great eminence and distinction.

It is impossible to ignore Holmskjold's special and particular
influence on the character of the decorations of the great Copenhagen
Catherine II service. The personality of the botanist-director is here
evident. But apart from this individual influence, in an examination
of the causes likely to have contributed to the style of decoration
employed, passing mention must be made of the great national enterprise
planned by Oeder in 1761: the original idea being that all European
Governments should contribute to a series of volumes illustrating the
complete flora of Europe. By this scientific co-operation duplication
was thus to be avoided, and each plant would be described once only.

Denmark alone took sufficient interest in the botanical work to
complete it. Austria touched the fringe of her flora with five hundred
illustrations, and Russia contributed a hundred. So the _Flora Danica_,
under the guidance of several generations of botanists, ploughed its
solitary furrow alone. The first volume, containing the first three
parts, was issued by Oeder in 1766. The plants were painted _in situ_
by zealous artist-botanists who travelled to the remote districts of
Denmark. This magnificent undertaking was in its earliest stages when
the great porcelain service was in contemplation.

It is interesting here to note the further history of the great
botanical work. Five parts were issued by O. F. Müller from 1775 to
1787. Vahl, the great botanist, who died in 1804, followed on by
another five parts, and the next seventeen parts, extending over
a period of thirty-five years, were under the editorship of J. W.
Horniman, who published a history of the progress of the work from
its inception down to 1836. By royal decree in 1847 it was decided
to accept illustrations of Swedish and Norwegian plants not found in
Denmark, thus increasing the scope and value of the work. It was to
be completed in fifty-one parts, and not until the year 1883 was this
great botanical work of the _Flora Danica_ pronounced finished!

It will thus be seen that, apart from Holmskjold's special and
particular predilections, there were general and national impulses
directed towards this work of exceptional character and of European
importance. It may readily be imagined that, prior to the advent of the
_Flora Danica_ service, the artists at the royal factory who painted
flowers had, under the vigilant eye of the specialist director, to
paint them from nature. A convolvulus did not become so decoratively
treated as to evade identification. The Greek honeysuckle pattern of
conventional use would not have passed at Copenhagen. Conventionality
was as much eschewed in decoration as was the rococo in modelling.
It is thus evident that nature and nature study, so remarkable and
beautiful a feature in Copenhagen porcelain, owes not a little to the
trained scientific vision of Theodor Holmskjold, the botanist.

Other factors enter into the question of the consideration of
this _Flora Danica_ service. It is obvious that the national feeling
in artistic and scientific circles was centred on nature and nature
study. Jean-Jacques had shown mankind that Dame Nature was capable of
being wooed with intense passion. It was not until the late eighteenth
century that the beauties of landscape began to be assiduously sought
after. Travellers crossed the Alps from one country to another and
regarded the frowning mountain, the sombre pass, or the rushing torrent
much in the same manner as the unpoetic mariner feared the hurricane.
Nature in her majestic loneliness was appalling. The sunny slopes of
the Apennines concealed volcanic terrors. The smile of the blue Lake
of Como was as treacherous as the dancing waves of the fickle sea
itself. Lakes and mountains and mountain gorges were to be avoided; no
mortal had conceived the idea of discovering their beauty. They were as
fearsome as the Pillars of Hercules to the Latin mariners.

[Illustration: CRUET STAND.

From _Flora Danica_ service made for Catherine II of Russia.

(_At Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen._)]

In England, Thomas Gray, the poet, made a journey into Westmoreland
and Cumberland in 1765 to see the Lake Country. His letters are the
first note in English literature of man's kinship with nature. It took
a century for the modern thought to germinate--"great men are part
of the infinite, brothers of the mountain and the sea." As early as
1739, Gray's letters to his mother are filled with passages extolling
the grandeur of the crags and precipices of the Alps, at a time when
Rousseau had not developed his later method, and Vernet had only
commenced to paint the turbulent sea with ecstasy.

In Denmark, in 1790, when the first model of the _Flora Danica_
service was turned on the potter's wheel, this inquiring and reflective
spirit was in the air, and the general tendency manifestly found a
reflex in the great national service being manufactured at the Royal
Porcelain Factory. The Russian Government had already entered into
co-operation in a small degree in regard to bringing the records of the
Russian flora into line with that of Denmark, and Catherine II, as is
known, was the patron of the German naturalist Dr. P. S. Pallas, who,
in 1784, commenced a _Flora Russica_, which was to eclipse anything yet
attempted. This was to be published at the expense of Catherine. At her
wish Pallas had in 1768 undertaken a scientific expedition to Siberia,
which occupied six years.

In this connection, therefore, and knowing the Empress Catherine to
be a votary of science and of art, the services made in England,
France, and Denmark for imperial use were not undertaken without due
consideration of this fact. The Sèvres service was embellished with
the art of the schools of Boucher, Lancret, and Watteau; the Wedgwood
service was frankly topographical, having painted copies, in mulberry
purple, of old engravings, and Copenhagen was designedly botanical,
based on the coloured illustrations of the _Flora Danica_ volumes.

=The Service.=--A notable visitor to the factory at the time of the
inception of the _Flora Danica_ service was the Chevalier Louis de
Boisgelin, Knight of Malta, who published his _Travels through Denmark
and Sweden_ in English in two volumes, at London, in 1810. The Comte
Alfonse de Fortia, his fellow-traveller, had previously published _Les
Voyages de deux François dans le Nord de l'Europe_. As a trustworthy
account of a contemporary eye-witness the opinion of de Boisgelin is
quoted:--

"The most beautiful porcelain likely to be sent for a long time
from this manufacture will be a complete service upon which is to be
represented, in natural colours, all the plants of the _Flora Danica_,
with one upon each piece, large or small, according to the dimensions
of the piece. The name of the plant will be marked under the plate,
and the whole is to be classed according to the Linnæan system. The
drawings are traced with such wonderful accuracy, that the most famous
painters belonging to the manufactory would not undertake so difficult
and slavish a piece of work."

This last statement as to the mechanical accuracy required in the
painting of the flora stamps it as something outside the realm of the
ordinary flower painter, and indicates at once the extreme scientific
definition of drawing required.

The Royal Copenhagen Factory had come to be recognized by other
Continental factories as excelling in the modelling of flowers, and
as exhibiting truthful and natural beauty in their employment for
decorative effect. The originality of the shapes of this service in
comparison with those of contemporary factories shows them to possess
a fine reticence which does not detract from the grand and imposing
character of the imperial service. The border is a new and bold
treatment with serrated leaf design, richly gilded and having three
rows of gilt pearls. In point of decoration the new style is realistic,
but far too scientific in treatment.

As a service it is magnificent. It amply fulfils the great and
inspired conceptions of its originators. Luplau was still a modeller,
skilful and practised in his own field of dignified, restrained,
and well-balanced forms compelling admiration, and the bouquets and
floral ornaments were modelled by Sören Preus. In painted decoration
the scientific atmosphere is only too evident. Ba er's pencil too
faithfully followed the botanical volumes of the _Flora Danica_. Each
piece is different; the whole gamut of the flora was covered, but each
subject was obviously not equally suitable for decorative effect. True
decorative art, however realistic, is alien from scientific exactitude.

The plants with their roots, leaves, and cross-sections of the stems
evade decorative treatment. The scientific spirit is further exhibited
in the written Latin names and references to the text of _Flora Danica_
appearing at the back of each piece. But it must be reiterated that it
was intended as a present to a votary of Von Linné, and the scientific
study of nature had challenged the capture of nature by art.

The magnificence of the great service is the magnificence of a great
series of ceramic volumes, reflecting in another medium the triumphs of
the illustrated volumes of the _Flora Danica_.

It is the first instance of the Copenhagen factory searching for
designs in a domain foreign to the true natural sources of inspiration
proper to the artist designer on porcelain. Another and later instance
is the series of imitative porcelain statuettes after Thorvaldsen's
creations in marble.




CHAPTER VI

EARLY BLUE-AND-WHITE UNDERGLAZE PAINTED




CHAPTER VI

EARLY BLUE-AND-WHITE UNDERGLAZE PAINTED

  The "Danish Pattern"--The Bornholm Clay period--Peculiarities in
      marking--Table of Marks (old blue-and-white underglaze painted
      porcelain).


The blue-and-white underglaze painted porcelain of Copenhagen has
become recognized as characteristic of the royal factory and of
Denmark. The original design is of Chinese origin, in common with other
forms of decoration, centuries old, followed by all European potters in
early days when the art of making true porcelain was discovered in the
West. But, like many another transplantation in art, it found congenial
atmosphere, and has become national to the country of its adoption.
The light, graceful plant _motif_ shown in the blue-and-white painted
fluted porcelain is as welcome a sight to Danes the world over as the
slender twin spires of Roskilde Cathedral, where the kings of Denmark
sleep in eternal peace.

The "Danish pattern" bears in a measure a certain relationship to
works in literature where the translation is greater than the original.

This is especially true when the work of a decadent period is
translated into the richer tongue of a more golden age. The English
Bible translated in the time of James I is richer in its fine wealth of
prose than the "original sacred tongues."

Some arts have been lost. It is said that the art of translation has
never been discovered. All have laboured after it in vain; it is as
hard to seek as hidden treasure, and one never finds it. But the Royal
Copenhagen Porcelain Factory found the "hidden treasure" in the design
which has grown into a thousand shapes inspired by the traditions of
Müller, who "laid the East in fee," and whose successors true to his
memory are not those

          Who would keep an ancient form
    Through which the spirit breathes no more.

From the manor farms of Vendsyssel to the confines of Danish-built
Altona, from the white cliffs of Möen to the ancient roofed city of
Ribe, the blue-and-white underglaze painted porcelain plates and dishes
have been family heirlooms since the days of Christian VII.

[Illustration: GROUP OF UNDERGLAZE, BLUE PAINTED.

Bornholm Period.

(_In Museum of Royal Porcelain Factory, Copenhagen._)]

[Illustration: EARLY PLATES.

Painted in blue underglaze, showing variation of national Danish
pattern.

(_At Dansk Folke Museum, Copenhagen._)]

The _Flora Danica_ service represents the greatest complete
creation in the overglaze painted work of the royal factory, and this
blue-and-white stands as the greatest and most complete creation of the
underglaze work.

It has been advanced, and on sure grounds, that this Copenhagen
blue-and-white porcelain, with its continuity of national design
extending in unbroken line for over a century and a quarter, is the
largest service the world has seen. It has grown by steady process
of evolution into thousands of well-defined forms, rich in inventive
modelling, and keeping abreast with modern requirements, and it is
to this day decorated with the old pattern of the early days. This
of itself is an achievement not equalled by any other factory. A
Copenhagen breakfast set of the twentieth century or a _tête-à-tête_
tea service can stand beside eighteenth-century blue-and-white
porcelain from the same factory, and be in perfect harmony in colour,
in decoration, and in character.

    Kindred and allied by birth,
    And made of the same clay.

The "Danish pattern" in blue was not long in attracting copyists from
other European factories. To-day in Copenhagen itself English faience
transfer-printed in blue stands as a trade imitation and a tribute
to the genius and originality of its prototype. Possibly the potter
plagiarists may never have heard of the pregnant words of Goethe:
"There are many echoes, but few voices."

=The Bornholm Clay Period.=--Mention has already been made, in dealing
with the early discoveries of Müller and the experiments he made, of
the clay which he found in the island of Bornholm. This clay forms
the body of some of the earliest-known pieces made by him. It may be
readily recognized by its heavy weight and by its grey tone. It is
easy, after making an examination of a great number of specimens of
the old blue-and-white ware, to distinguish this Bornholm period, even
although in the two years (1773-1775) prior to the adoption of the
three blue lines as a factory mark, some pieces bear no mark whatever.
It somewhat resembles certain heavy Japanese ware in its compact and
solid body and grey-blue colour.

The author has made a fairly exhaustive test of several hundred
pieces, both in public and in private collections. The gradual
development in regard to the perfection of the paste and the glaze
is so noticeable that it is possible to place the old blue-and-white
fluted ware in successive grades according to the stages of evolution.
At first coarse, though never meaningless nor offensive, when the ware
was obviously in an experimental period, it betrayed fire-cracks and
warpings in form and slight departures from perfect symmetry. Later it
became whiter and thinner, and was manifestly more completely under the
control of the potter. When the perfected period was reached, there
were tea caddies, pounce boxes, and, in particular, certain dishes, of
which an example is illustrated (p. 169) which are not unworthy to be
compared favourably with specimens of old blue-and-white Worcester of
the early period. There is a delicacy and refinement in the modelling
and potting, and that tenderness in the glaze and thinness in the body
which at once betoken that the technique has been subjected to the
patient potter's control.

[Illustration: GROUP, PAINTED IN BLUE UNDERGLAZE.

_Tea Caddy_, circular. Mark, three lines, figure 1 (blue); II (incised).

_Teapot._ Fine rich blue. Mark, three lines and figure 3 on lid.

_Tea Caddy._ Mark, three lines, figure 2 and two lines (blue); T
(incised).

(_In Museum at Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory._)]

[Illustration: DISH (NATIONAL DANISH PATTERN), AND TWO PLATES.

Decorated with underglaze blue painting.]

=Peculiarities in Marking.=--For the first time in any treatment of
the subject, the potters and modellers' marks are given in a table
appended to this chapter, which the writer hopes will be found useful
in identifying early examples. These hieroglyphics, usually accompanied
by the factory mark of the three blue lines, are painters' marks, and
in the case of incised marks are representative of the modellers or
turners. It may be possible, upon further research being given to the
subject, to identify the individual marks of each painter or modeller,
and thus arrive at some more definite conclusion in regard to the
date at which these early blue-and-white pieces were made. But until
the exact list of painters at the factory, together with the dates
at which they were employed, is subjected to exhaustive research, it
is obviously impossible to establish more than the present series of
marks, with limited conclusions in regard to chronological order.
The marks now given have been specially drawn from old examples of
undoubted authenticity.

There is one peculiarity in connection with the marks found on this
early blue-and-white porcelain. The bases are frequently ground,
and the factory mark of the three blue lines, with an accompanying
painter's mark, are on the base, with little spots of glaze put over
them no bigger than a threepenny-piece. Another idiosyncrasy of
Copenhagen marks, not confined to the blue-and-white, is the almost
hidden position in which some of the marks are found. In overglaze
painted figures the three blue lines will peep from beneath the hem
of some garment. In the blue-and-white examples the mark is sometimes
found on the inside of the handle of a teapot or on a lid. In some
of the earlier pieces the blue mark has turned to black under the
action of the oven. Similarly, in the early days of experiments in
connection with the perfecting of the blue, a series of plates will be
found of exactly the same decoration and bearing the same painter's
signature; but the caprice of the fire, or the inexact knowledge of
the craftsman, has converted the blue of some of them into a very deep
blue, approaching black in tone.

There is no doubt that the old blue-and-white porcelain of Copenhagen
has not yet been exploited by collectors. It came concurrently with
the rich overglaze painting in colours and the magnificence of gilding
for which the Müller period is remarkable. It stands quite apart; its
decoration is underglaze, and not at that time, nor since, has gold
ever been added to this mussel-blue painted and fluted utilitarian
ware other than in very exceptional circumstances. It is simple and
delightful, and what it was in the old days it is now. The style
of painted decoration is perennial. It is a pattern known all over
the world. It has lived for a hundred and thirty-six years. Its
life-history suggests the long-continued idealities of the Chinese
potter or the coloured intricacies of the Persian rug-weaver continued
by the wise children of clever craftsmen with equal fidelity from
generation to generation.


TABLE OF MARKS

(Old Blue-and-white Porcelain Underglaze Painted)

  of Painters and Modellers, found usually in conjunction with the
  Factory Mark of the three blue lines. Painter's mark in blue.
  Modeller's mark incised.

Mark found on examples of the Bornholm clay period, see _Apothecary
Jar_ (illustrated, p. 161).

[Illustration]

On _Oval Dish_, fine body, and with scale pattern decoration in rich
blue. =MII= (incised). (Illustrated, p. 169).

[Illustration]

_Coffee Pot_, Bornholm period, =ML= incised. (Illustrated, p. 161).

[Illustration]

On a _Soup Tureen_, marked at bottom of vessel inside.

[Illustration]

On a _Soup Tureen_, at bottom of vessel inside, =TI= on base (incised).

[Illustration]

Bornholm period mark. On a _Pounce Box_, _Cup_ with spout and handle,
and other examples.

[Illustration]

On a _Plate_ with pierced edge (illustrated, p. 169).

[Illustration]

On a round _Inkstand_ Three lines and cross (in black). =K= (incised).

[Illustration]

On a _Pounce Box_, at Museum, Royal Copenhagen Manufactory. =L=
(incised).

[Illustration]

On a round _Tea Caddy_, with floral decoration. =II= (incised).

[Illustration]

On a _Tea Caddy_. Inside rim (in blue). =T= on base (incised).

[Illustration]

On a _Small Teapot_. Moulded rosebud on lid. Figure 3 (in blue) on rim
of lid. Other mark on base (in blue). (Illustrated, p. 167).

[Illustration]

On a _Compotier_ (in blue). At the Museum, Royal Copenhagen Porcelain
Factory.

[Illustration]

Mark (in blue) on _Plate_ with pierced edge.

[Illustration]

On a _Soup Tureen and Cover_, with lemon and leaves modelled on cover,
natural size. Figure 2 (incised).

[Illustration]

On a _Cup_, and other examples.

[Illustration]

On a _Plate_, at Museum, Royal Copenhagen Factory, and other examples.

[Illustration]

On _Cup_, of unusual decoration, with blue banded ornament.

[Illustration]

On a _Fruit Basket_, pierced work, twisted handles, and roses in
relief. =W2= (incised).

[Illustration]

On a _Jug_ at the _Dansk Folke Museum_, Copenhagen.

[Illustration]

On a _Dish_ at the _Dansk Folke Museum_, Copenhagen. Other numerals are
found from 1 to 7.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER VII

THE SUCCESSORS OF MÜLLER

(1820-1880)

THE DECADENCE




CHAPTER VII

THE SUCCESSORS OF MÜLLER

(1820-1880)

_THE DECADENCE_

  Battle of Copenhagen, 1801--Nelson's Letters to Lady Hamilton--The
      so-called Empire style--The Thorvaldsen period.


The great days of the Müller _régime_ had come to an end. A quarter
of a century of brilliant success was followed by twice that length of
gloom. The Arctic night of early nineteenth-century years had settled
on art. Müller's retirement in 1801 was not the only contributory
cause of the decadence of the factory. The French Revolution had
shaken Europe from end to end. The Napoleonic Wars following in its
wake disturbed serenity and repose in art and letters. The fortunes
of States were in the melting-pot, and destiny was "moulding men in
plastic circumstance." The storm cyclone had more than once centred
around Denmark. The century opened ill for the fortunes of the factory.
In April 1801 a British fleet entered the Sound and engaged in a great
naval battle with the Danish fleet. "I have been in a hundred and five
engagements," said Nelson, "but that of to-day is the most terrible of
them all." The genius of Napoleon conceived the idea of "conquering
the sea by the land," to quote his own words. Paul I of Russia became
Napoleon's ally and tool. Russia brought pressure to bear on Sweden,
Denmark, and Prussia, and these Powers were federated as the "League of
Armed Neutrality," with the avowed purpose of challenging the maritime
supremacy of England. Prussia marched troops into Hanover. Russia
seized all British ships in Russian ports, and every port from the
North Cape to Gibraltar was closed against the British flag. Behind
this combination was the brain of Napoleon.

The story of the battle is well known. The Danes fought stubbornly.
The love of the fatherland and the flag, the split flag of old
Denmark--the _Dannebrog_--a white cross on a red field, was stimulated
by the poets of the day. Old memories were awakened of the days of
Juel, Hvidfeldt, and Tordenskjold. Workmen, peasants from the farms,
and merchants from the city hastened to enroll. The students of the
university, a thousand strong, enlisted to a man. The Danish ships,
supported by the shore batteries, lay in the shallow waters of the
Sound. The attacking party had to navigate their ships through narrow
and dangerous shoals. On the church towers and roofs hundreds of
spectators watched the great fight. There was a dearth of seamen. In
some of the vessels there was, so a Danish account narrates, only one
sailor in twenty. These raw crews were kept at their drill throughout
the night prior to the battle.

[Illustration: LARGE PORCELAIN BOWL.

Painted in colours and richly gilded. Dated 2 April 1801.

With inscription in memory of the brave Danes who fell at the Battle of
Copenhagen

(_At Dansk Folke Museum, Copenhagen._)]

Writing to the _Times_ in 1801, an officer present at the engagement
says: "The enemy made a very obstinate resistance and fought like brave
men. Most of our ships are very much cut up ... and the vessels which
have been captured are perfect sieves, there being hardly a single
plank in any one of them but has at least ten shot-holes in it. In
fact, it was the most dreadfully fought action that ever took place in
the annals of history." Of the shattered prizes, only one Danish vessel
was fit to be repaired and taken to Portsmouth.

It was at this battle, as every schoolboy knows, that Nelson
disregarded Admiral Parker's signal, "I have only one eye," he said,
turning to his captain, "and may be allowed to be blind on occasion."
Placing the spy-glass to his blind eye he said, "Upon my word, I do not
see any signal."

A young Danish officer, a lad of seventeen, Villemoes, commanding a
floating battery with twenty-four men, stuck to his post till only four
of his men remained. Nelson, after the battle, begged the Crown Prince
to introduce the young officer to him. The brave deeds of two great
fighting races stand out on that day of awful carnage. Captain Larssen,
after the battle, when he appeared in the streets of Copenhagen, was
the object of universal homage as the hero of Bloody Maundy Thursday.
When he passed Amagertorv, the fishwives would rise and make him a deep
curtsy. Yet he passed his days in straitened circumstances and died
well-nigh forgotten. No statue commemorates his memory.

But there is a ceramic record of that day of great battle. We
illustrate a Copenhagen porcelain bowl, with painted scene, showing the
_Dannebrog_ flying and the sea-fight in progress. It was given, painted
in colours, to the officers, and uncoloured to the _sous-officiers_
who fought on the 2nd of April 1801. There is one at the _Dansk Folke
Museum_ and another at Rosenborg Castle, and the few other bowls in
private hands are highly treasured as heirlooms. It is inscribed on a
panel:--

        _Tilegnet
        O. Fischer
    og alle brave Danske.
  Kiöbenhavn 2 April 1801,
            af
        Roepstorff._

  (Dedicated to O. Fischer and all the brave Danes. Copenhagen, 2 April
  1801, by Roepstorff.)

It is a sad story--the world-wide-empire dreams of one man had
brought devastating ruin to friend and foe alike. There are many
memories of the Battle of the Baltic; many links of friendship between
the island kingdoms by the sea have been forged since then.

    Let us think of them that sleep
    Full many a fathom deep
    By thy wild and stormy steep,
                Elsinore!

=Lord Nelson's Letters to Lady Hamilton.=--The letters of Lord Nelson
at that date have an interesting reference to Copenhagen porcelain.
Apart from finding his portrait on Staffordshire earthenware mugs and
jugs as a national hero, and commemorative of his victories, he took a
considerable pleasure in ceramic art. In 1802 he ordered a Worcester
service, pieces of which are found in the cabinets of collectors. His
letters frequently contain references to his china, e.g.: "I send
by the coach a little parcel containing the keys of the plate-chest
and the case of the tea-urn, and there is a case of Colebrook Dale
breakfast set and some other things."

[Illustration: CUP (1830-1840)

With view of Kronborg Castle, with shipping on the Sound. Painted in
colours and richly gilded.

(_At Dansk Folke Museum, Copenhagen._)]

After the Battle of Copenhagen one of his letters to Lady Hamilton is
as follows:--

  _April 14, 1801._
  My dear Friend,

  I was in hopes that I should have got off some Copenhagen china to
  have sent you by Captain Bligh, who was one of my seconds on the 2nd.
  He is a steady seaman, and a good and brave man....

Another letter to Lady Hamilton, written on the following day, runs:--

  _St. George, April 15, 1801._
  My dearest Friend,

  I can get nothing here worth your acceptance, but as I know you have
  a valuable collection of china, I send you some of the Copenhagen
  manufacture. It will bring to your recollection that here your
  attached friend Nelson fought and conquered. Captain Bligh has
  promised to take charge of it, and I hope it will reach you safe....

  Ever yours, most faithfully,
  NELSON AND BRONTE.

At this date Müller had not retired from the factory, and Nelson
undoubtedly procured some specimens of the best period. It is a matter
of conjecture as to whether these examples are now known and in what
collection in England they may be found.

Hardly had the echoes of the booming guns died away when Copenhagen
was again bombarded by a British fleet in 1807, and the Danish fleet
captured to prevent it falling into the hands of Napoleon. A fire
had consumed a quarter of the city in 1795, and, succeeded by these
later calamities, produced a condition of considerable distress and
misery. The porcelain factory had its share of disaster. Falling bombs
did irreparable damage: thousands of pounds' worth of porcelain and
moulds were destroyed. This last blow was indeed a terrible one for the
factory, and helped to complete its ruin.

[Illustration: PLATE.

Painted with flower subject in natural colours overglaze by Jensen.
Date 1827 Rich gilding at border with apparently experimental designs.

Mark three lines and | in blue.

(_At Museum, Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory._)]

=The so-called Empire Style.=--But there came another Continental
movement inimical to art in no less degree than war--the great
inventive spirit which produced the age of machinery. Art grew
impoverished and unfertile. Genius seemed to have descended on the
workshop and the loom. The painter, the designer, the creator of forms,
and the artist in colours lived in a nightmare of banalities. In regard
to England, this industrial revolution has been a most powerful factor
in stifling art. In Denmark, happily, this problem has not even yet
come with overwhelming force, as there are no mines, no copper, iron,
or coal, and the shadowy side of scientific invention and deadening
commerce has not darkened the artistic horizon.

In considering the ceramics of Denmark, it should be borne in mind
that, owing to an isolated northern position, artistic movements
affecting the great European centres were slower in obtaining a
foothold in Copenhagen. This in a great measure explains the steady
growth of national art on its own lines. It was not until 1824, when G.
Hetch became director, that the Copenhagen factory commenced to produce
designs, then almost disappearing in other parts of Europe, in the
Empire style.

Count Caylus in France and Winckelmann in Germany in middle
eighteenth-century days had heralded the oncoming classic movement
which had its _furore_ of simplicity under the Empire.

Sir William Hamilton and Wedgwood had carried on the traditions in
England. The Copenhagen factory at this date followed the decoration of
Berlin and Vienna.

_A Cup_ of this period (1830-1840) is illustrated (p. 185). This cup is
heavily gilded in the prevalent atrocious style. It is finely painted
in natural colours, having a marine scene representing the Castle of
Kronborg, with the Sound, and a vessel in full sail. It was here on the
ramparts that Hamlet met the ghost of his father. To-day the Danish
soldiers in blue uniform keep sentry-go on the platform of the bastion.
The bugle-call echoes across the Sound, and the grey frowning walls
hold the mystery of the poet's dream.

One recalls Hamlet's vigil here, with his "The air bites shrewdly, it
is very cold," and Horatio's reply, "It is a nipping and an eager air,"
and the angry waves beating below and the gathering storm from the
north complete the picture.

We recollect the words--

    The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,
    Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;
    The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
    The triumph of his pledge.

And remembering, fall in a muse, to be aroused by the note of the bugle
and the clash of arms of the guard.

[Illustration: FIGURE OF MERCURY.

After Thorvaldsen. White porcelain unglazed.]

It was here that Charles XII of Sweden came with an army to lay
siege, and the place where the manacled prisoners sat in the chapel
is yet another link between yesterday and to-day. Here, too, is the
tiny room, the prison of the young Queen Caroline Matilda, with barred
window, overlooking the stormy sea.

The picture of Kronborg Castle on a cup conjures up a list of tragic
memories. It is meet that it should find a record in Copenhagen
porcelain. It is a page from Danish history.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

Plates of this period show the heavy style that had descended on the
factory. Deep gold bands enclose a circular picture, painted in a warm
brown colour by Garmein about 1820-1825. They are mainly topographical
in character. A plate painted by Jensen is signed with his initial,
together with the three blue lines as a factory mark (illustrated, p.
189). It is a fine flower-subject in natural colours, representing
primula, blue flowers, and daffodil. The border is richly gilded
and has three distinct patterns; it evidently has been used as an
experimental piece. It is now in the Museum at the royal factory. There
are other plates painted in colours by L. Lyngbe, in 1831 and 1833
respectively, bearing his initial L. They are decorated in rich gilding
by Brandstrup. One represents Söroe (with title on medallion), the Eton
of Denmark. The other is of Prince's Palace, Christiansborg, Copenhagen.

=The Thorvaldsen Period.=--In 1867 the factory came under the control
of A. Falck, and the director Holm, although not capable of raising the
artistic output to its old level, introduced a new feature in a number
of biscuit figures after Thorvaldsen, the great Danish sculptor.

We reproduce the well-known figure of the god _Mercury_, as indicating
the beauty of these productions. Interesting as they are, and
undoubtedly possessing great delicacy as replicas of masterpieces of
another art, the decadent note is still present in denoting that the
modellers had to seek inspiration elsewhere. It is pleasurable to be
able to collect a miniature gallery of Thorvaldsen's work in porcelain,
but the potting and modelling of them added nothing to the creative
faculty of the artists at the factory.

The only productions of importance now conducted were an occasional
jubilee or presentation vase made from Hetch's old moulds, decorated
with a view of some villa or some edifice associated with the person
who ordered the vase. They were usually covered with lilac or purple
ground and profusely gilded.

The flame had not gone out, but it was flickering fitfully, and the
artistic impulses in painting, and the poetry that had never died in
Denmark, were stirring to kindle the fire into renewed life.

Since Höyen, the historian, delivered his lecture in 1844 _On the
Conditions for the Development of a National Scandinavian Art_, artists
had turned homewards. There was the national spirit of the northern
people, the peasants and the fisher-folk, to make the Danish _genre_
picture. There was nothing northern to be found in Rome. Eckersberg had
indicated the way, and with the study of man came the study of nature.
Johann Thomas Lunbye, with his cattle and his forest landscapes, caught
the somnolent air of cattle before Troyon had set the fashion in
France. Peter Christian Skovgaad interpreted the spiritual beauty of
the Danish beech-woods; his favourite light was the cold pale day of
the northern sky with its sober blue. Kroyer, with his _Skagen Fishers
at Sunset_, and his _Fishermen setting out by Night_, surrounds the
_Dansk Folke_ with mystery and poetry.

To these days belong the rejuvenation of Danish art, and what the
painter was doing on his canvas the ceramic artist was shortly to do on
his vase and on his placque. The dawn of the Renaissance was at hand.




CHAPTER VIII

THE MODERN RENAISSANCE




CHAPTER VIII

THE MODERN RENAISSANCE

  The after-effects of war--Philip Schou, Councillor of State, rebuilds
      the factory--Arnold Krog appointed art director--A new technique
      developed--Triumph of modern Copenhagen porcelain--The new
      impulses stimulate other European potters--A new note added to
      European ceramic art--The avoidance of classic or stereotyped
      styles--The idiosyncrasies of Copenhagen--Intense national
      sentiment of Copenhagen--Marks of leading painters and modellers.


On the threshold of the great Renaissance of art which re-established
the name and fame of the Royal Copenhagen Factory, it is necessary
to look at the subject from more than one point of view. The fire
which Müller had lit had been burning dimly; indeed, save for the
blue-and-white utilitarian ware, it had almost gone out. The Copenhagen
factory was a century old in the seventies. Most of our English
porcelain factories had put out their furnaces for ever. Chelsea,
Derby, Plymouth, Bristol, and Bow had entered that ghostly realm where
collectors snatch at the body of the potters and posterity portions out
the inheritance of the departed great.

The years of the English porcelain factories, with their triumphs
and their decadence, were compassed within the span of a man's life.
Plymouth and Bristol, the only hard-paste factories, together ran less
than twenty years. Bow succumbed in less than half a century. Chelsea
existed only thirty-nine years, and Derby, with all its vicissitudes of
fortune, changing hands many times, never reached a century old. The
Worcester factory is the only English porcelain factory in existence
to-day with a history which goes back to the middle years of the
eighteenth century.

[Illustration: PLACQUE. WILD GEESE ON ICE.

Painted in underglaze colours by Arnold Krog. Period 1891-1895.]

The half-century from 1825 to 1875, not only in Copenhagen but in
every part of Europe, represents a dead level of banality in art.
Sporadic attempts to awaken enthusiasm or to stimulate public interest
fell on stony ground. Genius unrequited, and hardly recognized,
consumed its life energy in solitary grandeur in many a lonely furrow.
The period is bounded on the one side by the Napoleonic Wars, and
on the other by the Crimean War and by the Franco-Prussian War. In
England, artistic impulses were stifled by the rapid progress of the
age of machinery, led by the Manchester school of thought--Ricardo and
John Stuart Mill. A soil so sterile as this was incapable of producing
the highest artistic results. The treasuries of many of the great
European Powers had been drained almost to depletion by vital wars, and
the little kingdom of Denmark had her share of political troubles. The
war-cloud had settled on the isthmus of Schleswig-Holstein. Prussia and
Austria and Denmark were whirled in a maelstrom of incessant warfare
concerning the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein. All the Great Powers
became involved. For forty years the struggle in one form or another
broke out anew like a smouldering fire. It was not until 1866 that the
Treaty of Vienna definitely assigned the future of the duchies to the
Powers. This is not the place to discuss the rights and wrongs of a
prolonged struggle by Denmark against more powerful neighbours, but
in consequence of the widespread arena of conflict, from Missunde to
Jutland, and the large war indemnity paid, it is manifest that the fine
arts came very near extinction in such troublous times, when blow upon
blow was rained upon the kingdom of Denmark.

The fortunes of the factory were at a low ebb, as we have seen in
dealing with the decadent period. But in 1883 the models, stores,
and other effects of the factory were sold to the limited company
"Aluminia." From this date a new future commenced for the factory.

=Philip Schou rebuilds the Factory.=--The hour demanded the man,
and the man was Philip Schou, who came as the pioneer of modernity.
In the outskirts of the capital, close to the park of the Castle of
Frederiksberg, large buildings were erected, containing workshops
provided with the latest improvements in machines and kilns of the
newest designs. The ovens were much larger than the older type, and
designed to hold about 15,000 pieces of average size. These drastic
changes at the dawn of the Renaissance, entirely due to the foresight
of Schou, necessitated the expenditure of a considerable amount of
money. It is not surprising to find that during the first years the
undertaking, from a financial point of view, did not prove successful.
This, at the time, except to Schou, may not have been recognized as
the happiest omen, but it is a postulate that art and commercialism
do not usually thrive together. It was the same in Müller's day; it
has always been an admitted fact, and it always will be acknowledged
that the cloven hoof of commercialism has marked the oncoming of a
decadent period. But Philip Schou had ambitions and desires which
no reverses could thwart. His practical grasp of the situation and
his perspicacious conception of future possibilities, which have now
been realized, stamp him as a man possessed of that rare combination
of poetry and practicability which marks the pioneer of any great
enterprise.

[Illustration: PLACQUE.

With autumnal scene painted in underglaze colours. By Arnold Krog.
Period 1896-1900.]

There are triumphs of great business organization which compel our
admiration in no less degree than artistic achievements won in equally
adverse conditions. To build up the decayed fortunes of a moribund art,
to combat financial disaster and impending ruin, require indomitable
courage and intensity of application which cannot be classed other than
as genius.

The great period of Müller and the great triumphs were sinking into
oblivion. Of the once famous factory it seemed as though little
might be left but the name. The old models of beautiful symmetry had
long been set aside or even destroyed. The favourite blue-and-white
service, the national pattern treasured as the remaining heirloom,
had lost all its style and harmony. Haphazard conditions prevailed
and slovenly results predominated. Originality had taken wing and
deserted the old factory. The old mussel design was painted on any
form that found its way into Denmark from other factories. Copenhagen
was content to follow, and leave art and prestige to take care of
themselves. Now and again artistic productions, such as a wedding or
a jubilee vase made from the old moulds, like milestones, marked the
road. With this material, with its poverty of art and paucity of ideas,
the new director, shrewd and energetic, saw that no headway could be
made. A demand for artistic and original decoration of articles of
domestic use and luxury was just making itself felt, and there was some
talk of creating a national Christian VI style. But the factory has
accomplished something greater--it has created a European style.

The early days of the factory, with its new impulses and its youthful
spirit of modernity, are reflected at once in the first attempts to
inaugurate something of artistic and permanent value. The comparison
between Schou and Müller holds good in many respects. They both were
men in advance of their day. They were builders, not only in the sense
of being pioneers of an artistic industry, but in the practical sense
of laying down ovens and expending money on valuable plant as a means
to the great end they had in view. The struggle against adversity, the
accumulating cloud of financial losses, the want of outside support,
are common factors in both these men's sturdy fight against failure.
Müller had to combat the inheritance of failure left by Fournier, and
Philip Schou had to overcome the deathly inertia that had paralysed
the factory during the decadence. It is not easy to find co-operation
in face of a general tendency in an opposite direction. Mediocre minds
find it more congenial to float unconcernedly with the stream. Schou
was the strong swimmer fighting against the current.

There is one other point where he claims kinship with Müller; he was
felicitous in the selection of his lieutenants, and his choice of
artistic assistance to further his ambitions was as wise as it was
phenomenally prescient.

[Illustration: PLACQUES.

Painted in underglaze colours. Diameter 9 inches.

Kestrel by V. Th. Fischer.      Meadow with farmhouse by C. F. Liisberg.]

=Arnold Krog appointed Art Director.=--In 1885 Arnold Krog became an
artist at the factory. Trained as an architect and a painter, he had
already spent five years in the restoration of Frederiksborg Castle,
and like those old Italian craftsmen who made all art their domain, he
came to the decoration of porcelain with instinctive appreciation of
its qualities.

A happier combination than this could not have been desired. Schou,
the business head, the man of strength of purpose, tenacity of will,
battling with stern facts and figures, and Arnold Krog, the artist and
dreamer, inventing new forms, wrestling with technical problems with a
practical skill wedded to poetic impulses.

The days of early Renaissance were filled with eager incessant work,
and whatever difficulties surged up to the doors of the factory, Schou
resisted them bravely. He believed in the future of the factory, he
believed in the work of the artists. It was this great proud belief of
a great man in his life's work that created the second great period in
the history of the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory. This quotation
from a fellow-worker of that date shows how lovingly his memory is
still cherished: "Optimistic and broad-minded man as he was, he firmly
believed that the factory would succeed in spite of all difficulties.
He did not look for immediate profit, but left us to work in peace,
undisturbed by all the anxieties and pecuniary difficulties with which
he, as managing director, must have had to contend."

=A New Technique developed.=--In regard to the direction in decoration
which the new porcelain took, it is interesting to realize how distinct
a departure this was from contemporary art. The moment that Arnold Krog
awakened to the fact that the body of the porcelain is smooth, white,
hard, and of surpassing beauty, that moment determined its future.
To cover it with colours or with gold in the overglaze style, as his
predecessors had done, was at once to extinguish its innate loveliness.
If blue dots and lines could be painted on plates, surely, thought the
new art director, other artistic designs could be produced in the same
manner. From these premises the principle of underglaze painting was
accepted, and has been since followed so successfully.

The determination of the method employed immediately led to the
inquiry as to the exact definition such painting was to take. The
difficulty now was to decide what to paint. It was obvious that mere
ornamentation would lead to nothing new. Could Europe teach Copenhagen
anything? It apparently could, at that stage. Accordingly, Philip Schou
and Arnold Krog made a tour of Holland, Belgium, France, and England,
and visited many of the leading factories. At the Antwerp Exhibition
they saw many beautiful things from Sèvres and the other great European
factories, but they had to admit that their journey was in a great
measure fruitless, as they did not discover what they sought--new
impulses for original work.

It was not enough that all traditional arabesques and scrolls should be
discarded: the plain white resplendent surface of the ware demanded its
place in the scheme of decoration.

At Paris, Arnold Krog visited the collection of M. S. Bing, who had
just returned with rich treasures of Oriental art from China and
Japan. These masterpieces in bronze, earthenware, porcelain, and
ivory, together with drawings and colour-prints with endless variety
of composition, brought with them an atmosphere of ancient culture,
artistic genius, and unerring instinct, and to the mind capable of
unlocking the mysteries of the old unexplored East they revealed their
secret.

The immediate results indicate clearly enough that Copenhagen had not
"jumped a claim" and found treasure-trove upon which she could live
till others gained the secret. There was no slavish imitation of the
designs of the Oriental potter, as was the case with Sèvres and with
Worcester. With true vision, the results of the East were traced to the
original source of inspiration, and henceforth Nature in all her forms,
in all her varying phases and moods, became the mirror into which
Copenhagen looked to see herself reflected.

With such an ideal before the factory there was work enough for
all and much to be accomplished. The records of this period show the
incessant labours of all concerned in building anew the fortunes
of the factory. Liisberg the sculptor was appointed modeller, and
a young apprentice, Hallin, was made his assistant. The extreme
difficulty of the technique offered frequent disappointments. The
tone is determined by the exact thickness of the layer of pigment
applied, and it is impossible to distinguish between the different
shades before the firing has taken place. The only guide in this
work is a fine instinct. But the enthusiasm of the little band of
workers, modellers and artists, was not damped by the vagaries of the
furnace. With little enough by way of precedent to guide them, they
attained a sure and unerring technique and a complete mastery over the
idiosyncrasies of the medium in which they worked. These early years of
intense application have created traditions for the factory, and the
days of Philip Schou stand as never to be forgotten in the strenuous
outburst of initiative industry which has raised a monument to Danish
handicraft and culture. In 1902 Philip Schou resigned his position
as managing director, and it is pleasurable to record that in a full
and complete life he has seen his early dreams realized. He received
decoration at the hands of foreign Governments, and in 1888 was made
a knight-commander of the Legion of Honour. Copenhagen porcelain had
won European distinction, being acclaimed as adding new impulses and
teaching a new technique to the older factories.

[Illustration: PLACQUES.

Painted in underglaze colours. Diameter 9 inches.

  Bird subject by V. Th. Fischer.
        Cow in meadow at edge of lake by G. Rode.]

The early successes of the porcelain were as surprising to the leading
experts of Europe as they were gratifying to the pioneers of the
Copenhagen Renaissance. It is an interesting fact that the first piece
painted in underglaze colours was bought in September 1885 by the Duke
of Sutherland, whose yacht was lying in the Sound. The Duke paid a
visit to the royal factory, and although at that time only three pieces
were finished, he carried off a specimen decorated with a stork flying
over a lake. Such an historic piece as this is now worth a considerable
sum.

=Triumph of Modern Copenhagen Porcelain.=--At the great International
Exposition at Paris in 1889, the Royal Copenhagen exhibit attracted
unusual attention. Although the factory was not then in a position to
make a grand show of large or costly pieces, French collectors and
connoisseurs besieged the show-cases, and the demand far exceeded the
supply, ten times the price asked being offered in many instances by
disappointed collectors. Within fourteen days of the opening of the
Exhibition everything of any artistic value was sold. Coupled with this
commercial success came the award of the _Grand Prix d'honneur_, a rare
distinction at that time, especially for so small an undertaking.

At this Exhibition the coloured crystalline glazes were shown for
the first time. These, now so well known in the adoption by most
of the leading factories of the world, were discovered in 1886 by
Clement, the chemist at the Royal Copenhagen Factory, and perfected by
his successor, Hr. Engelhardt. (This crystalline ware is dealt with
separately in Chapter X.)

The days of the early Renaissance were full of promise--a promise
that has not been unfulfilled. The old factories, with traditions of
a century and a half, threw off their lethargy at the trumpet-blast
of modernity. The Copenhagen factory was like the fairy prince of
the romantic tale who blew the magic horn and awakened the sleeping
princesses.

=The New Impulses stimulate other European Potters.=--Art criticism
of this period abounds in glowing tribute. M. Edouard Garnier, one of
the directors of the Sèvres factory, wrote in the _Gazette des Beaux
Arts_ in 1889: "Not one of the foreign porcelain factories which in
1878 threatened to become dangerous rivals to us seems to have made
any progress; on the other hand, the beautiful exhibits of the Royal
Porcelain Factory of Copenhagen are quite a revelation to us: they show
quite a new spirit in the art of porcelain-making."

Among the varied developments at this time considerable attention
was given to the form of the blue-and-white "mussel"-painted ware, and
a wonderful variety of shapes followed each other in quick succession.
All the old artificial and oftentimes meaningless designs which had
crept in during the decadent period were discarded, and were replaced
by tasteful and natural designs which were conceived with a view to
the characteristic lines in their decoration. The great and wonderful
inventiveness and rich variety of this table ware in its thousand forms
are therefore the consummation of the incessant search for truth and
symmetry and beauty which characterized the early Renaissance period.

[Illustration: PLACQUE.

Painted in underglaze colours, by C. Liisberg. Diameter 12 inches.]

If proof be needed of the great influence Copenhagen art exercised on
contemporary ceramics, the proof is ready to hand. Just eleven years
after the Paris Exposition of 1889 came the great Exposition of 1900,
and an examination of the _grand-feu_ specimens of the Sèvres factory
shows to what extent the delicate tones of the new Copenhagen technique
in underglaze painting had affected the French potters. Crystalline
glazes had by this time been developed. In 1894 M. Edouard Garnier,
of the National factory at Sèvres, in again passing judgment upon the
work of Copenhagen, refers to the fact that two specimens exhibiting
"marvellous skill in the execution"--the _Flight of the Sparrows_ and
the _Lilacs_--were bought for inclusion in the modern collection of
ceramic art of the Sèvres Museum, and to this museum Hr. Philip Schou
sent the first specimens of varied colorations "_au grand feu_" and
the experiments made by Hr. Engelhardt of full or partial crystallized
glazes.

In regard to the general atmosphere of the _grand-feu_ ceramics, the
Sèvres factory had by 1900, the year of the Exhibition, turned with
such fond eyes to Copenhagen that the results then offered, triumphs
though they were, reflected something more than usual of the Northern
spirit. For instance, one remembers the two great biscuit groups
in hard porcelain for table decoration at the Élysée, by Frémiet,
the master sculptor. These were 4 feet 8 inches in height, and were
marvels of fabrication. The one was the Athenian _Minerva_, and the
other the Scandinavian _Diana_ standing in her chariot, with a hound
at her feet and driving two reindeer. These were the first pieces of
so great a size ever made in biscuit at Sèvres. Figures of Northern
animals followed the success of the factory by the Baltic, and there
was one, a _Wolf_ tracing human steps in the snow, by M. Valton, which
won commendation. Nor was this all. The grey tones were successfully
reproduced in the _Danish Dogs_, by Gardet.

There is no greater tribute to pay to the inspiring genius behind the
Royal Copenhagen Factory than to enumerate these instances of old
factories with the prestige of Sèvres and Meissen hailing the newly
awakened spirit of a younger factory. On every side, in these days,
came the tribute of praise generously given by masters of technique
and by rival workers in art. The Renaissance was something more than a
name--it had become an accomplished fact.

The great achievement of the modern Renaissance period is the creation
of a new technique in underglaze decoration, which has added something
to modern European ceramic art. The underglaze blue, employed at the
old royal factory by Müller, was familiar from early Meissen days.
But the revelation that underglaze painting of landscape had become
something more romantic than Chinese prototypes was a fact only
realized after Copenhagen had made successful experiment. The landscape
of the Oriental potter, at the best, had something of formality and
followed a convention alien to Western laws of perspective. Differing
essentially from the enamel colours of the overglaze Continental work,
and not less so from the glost-kiln colours of the English factories
in their underglaze work, the _grand-feu_ colours, with their scheme
of harmonies imparted something fresh and original to the art of the
modern potter.

It is, therefore, of great interest, commingled with considerable
speculation, to contemplate the various stages of evolution of this
characteristic style, and to await the future phases of its development.

In reviewing the work of this Renaissance period, an attempt has
been made by the writer to arrive at some conclusion as to that exact
point of time at which the genius of the factory reaches its whitest
heat during a brilliant quarter of a century of work. In a rich field
of design which exhibits so much character and freshness, when new
surprises may come forth from the oven at any moment, no inconsiderable
difficulty presents itself in selecting any period where the work is
more excellent.

Happily, in contemplating the underglaze productions of Copenhagen,
there is an extended period which may be passed in review. It is
perhaps natural, when making tests of the general output of work, to
select the middle years as productive of ceramic art of the highest
order. There is the advantage in point of date of being able to apply a
standard to it, either side by side with earlier work, or in comparison
with later creations in the same style of decoration by the same band
of artists and modellers.

The number and character of the decorative pieces produced at the Royal
Copenhagen Porcelain Factory during the ten years from 1896 to 1905, to
which the highest praise has been given, seem to indicate that a close
investigation of the details of the work of the individual modellers
and artists might with advantage be pursued by those cosmopolitan
collectors intent on acquiring masterpieces representative of the
highest modern ceramic art.

[Illustration: PLACQUE. SNOW SCENE WITH SETTING SUN.

Painted in underglaze colours. Signed A. Smidth.]

Personal tastes and predilections are not unimportant factors in
passing judgment upon the present-day work of the factory, but the
authorities of museums in various parts of the world, whose standard
is a high one, have not hesitated in selecting modern examples of
Royal Copenhagen porcelain. In following the trend of the development
of the porcelain since the great outburst in 1900, when at the Paris
Exhibition by general acclamation Copenhagen was acknowledged to be
ahead of all other European factories, disinterested critics and less
disinterested competitors have eagerly watched the progress of the
Danish ware. Art requires no passport to cross international barriers,
and foreign experts have enthusiastically admitted that the work of
Copenhagen is of surprising beauty. At successive exhibitions, when
nation has stood in friendly rivalry with nation, the ceramic record
of Copenhagen has not been dimmed by equal work. So far it is still in
advance of every one in Europe. Imitators it has, and, as the old adage
puts it, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

The question is always asked of factories "with a past," whether it
be Sèvres or Meissen, Wedgwood or Worcester--Is the work of to-day
an echo of past glories, has the lamp burned dim, is the sacred fire
still alight? In regard to other factories this is not the place to
make any pronouncement, nor is it impossible to say that at any moment
the spirit of the presiding genius of these great factories with great
traditions may awaken to inspire anew the modern potters upon whom
the mantle of succession has fallen. To cover European factories in a
survey is often to come upon silent and deserted temples with decrepit
worshippers offering sacrifices to a dim and distant past. But the
oracle may yet speak.

It is here that Copenhagen, with its great period of overglaze work,
under the Müller _régime_, holding equality with the great factories
of its day, as we have shown in earlier chapters, now comes forward
with a second great period of underglaze work, bearing no immediate
relationship with the first. Holger Danske has awakened to give magic
potency to the Danish art.

The following are the chief characteristics of Royal Copenhagen
porcelain. It is always hard fired _au grand feu_, and the various
classes of the underglaze decorated ware may be summarized as follows:--

=Underglaze Painted=

I. _Individual Pieces._

Vases and placques signed by the artists who have painted them. Such
unique specimens of personal work are never reproduced.

(A list of artists, with facsimile reproductions of their signatures,
will be found at the end of this chapter.)

II. _General Art Objects._

Vases, placques, bibelots, and ornamental subjects.

These are designed with a view to general production, and this practice
has originated since 1893.

[Illustration: PLACQUE.

With geese and landscape painted in underglaze colours. Signed C. F.
Liisberg.]

In this class may be included the collection of Commemorative
Placques designed by Arnold Krog. The number struck of these is
limited, and they are never repeated after the occasion for which they
were made (see p. 243).

More strictly utilitarian ware is represented by the continuous output
of the blue-and-white fluted service, to which new forms are constantly
being added.

III. _Figure Subjects._

Peasants, children, and animal life--quadrupeds, birds, and fish--all
modelled directly from nature.

IV. _Vases and Modelled Subjects with Coloured or Crystallized Glazes._

This style was commenced at Copenhagen as early as 1886, and is
described in detail, Chapter X.


=Overglaze Painted Porcelain=

Revival of porcelain in the style of the Juliane Marie period, modelled
and decorated from old and rare examples. This is the latest phase of
development.

       *       *       *       *       *

In tabulated form some conception may be formed as to the classes into
which the work of the modern Renaissance may be divided. Something
must be said about the immediate causes which directed the line of
progression and advancement in the course it has taken.

The principles of decoration especially applying to porcelain, smooth,
white, and hard, such as this, have been realized to the full by Arnold
Krog, the art director of the factory.

The uttermost developments of the underglaze painting are governed by
the axiom that such a fine body as that of the Copenhagen porcelain is
instantly destroyed by being covered with colours or with gilding. The
old Danish mussel-blue painted underglaze dinner ware is the skeleton
upon which the fabric of the modern Renaissance movement has been built.

=The Avoidance of Classic or Stereotyped Styles.=--Something of the
forcefulness of the originality of Copenhagen may be gathered from a
brief hypothetical survey of what divergent paths design might have
taken even at that critical moment when it was determined to employ the
underglaze colours for decorative landscape subjects. The conventional
panel might have been still employed, and with it the formal scenes
of gardens with cavaliers and ladies, bringing the Chinese landscape
subject into Western perspective, and at the same time eschewing
the vivid colours of Sèvres or Meissen. Or underglaze painting, in
blue and the other _grand-feu_ colours, might have found itself in
panels supplemented by overglaze enamel colours of bright tone, in
floral decoration, or _œil-de-perdrix_ and other luscious patterns,
and richly gilded. It might, not unnaturally, have appeared to be
a safer beginning to develop the Danish conventional pattern into
something more intricate in design, with geometrical borders and formal
floral painting or with old Scandinavian interlaced designs of Runic
character, exhibiting the newer advance of underglaze treatment.

Copenhagen, with wise rejection, took none of these courses, and
the Renaissance leapt into being not only with new applications of
underglaze painting, but with a complete and rapidly perfected theory
wherein the subject became a ceramic poem. Throwing all convention
to the winds, it brought tone to underglaze painting, and within the
limits of the potter's technique, the same relative atmospheric quality
to the decorated vase or placque as there is on the canvas of the
painter.

The porcelain found itself in an incredibly short time, and rapidly
passed through its initial stages. The first light had come from the
East. The influx into Europe of some of the finest art work of Japan
had a marked effect on design.

But Krog's genius was too original to snatch at the body; he caught
the spirit of the best, and the first attempts have a slight indication
of their origin, till with full strength Copenhagen needed no guiding
hand to lead her to the inspiration of all true design. The simple
forms of nature were translated into ceramic art, and the melting,
dreamy, sad-hued porcelain was imbued with the subtle effects of
the Danish landscape. The great simplicity of _motif_ was the great
simplicity of genius. The effects are so natural and reticent that
their greatness might well escape common observation. But the trained
eyes of half the potters in Europe and of connoisseurs of the highest
ceramic art were turned, and are turned still, to the output of
the Copenhagen factory. _Summa ars est celare artem_ is eminently
applicable to the art of Arnold Krog and the band of Danish artists
trained under him. There is nothing showy or clever, nothing cheap or
meretricious in all their work. Everything that has come from Krog's
hands has been well conceived, and an honest attempt made not to win
admiration but to make one step forward in artistic evolution towards
the ideal. Without seeking reward he has won the esteem of the cultured
critics of a whole continent.

=The Idiosyncrasies of Copenhagen.=--Wherein lies the strength of
Copenhagen porcelain? The mysteries of underglaze did not originate
in Denmark. The blue, greenish-yellow, brown, sea-green, maroon,
lemon-colour, celadon-green, and red, are colours found painted under
the glaze in old Chinese examples in collections in various European
museums. But there is a difference. Chinese landscapes in blue have
a charm and atmosphere of their own, although the European taste
has shown a marked preference for enamel-painted porcelain of more
brilliant colours. The underglaze of the East was mainly confined to
decorative conventional treatment. There is the exquisite family of
jars, designed as presents at the New Year, painted underglaze, with
the prunus blossom, and geometric pattern representing the breaking
ice. These are grotesquely termed "ginger jars" in the jargon of the
auction-room, and fine specimens bring immense prices under the hammer.
In a measure these, and vases and beakers with floral decoration, and
cups and saucers, with dragons or with the well-known "aster" pattern,
may be regarded as conventional. From these prototypes Meissen and
Sèvres and Worcester drew many fine inspirations.

In underglaze blue painting there is another class with landscapes and
figures, such as bowls, of which there are infinite variety, which
convey, in lieu of regular ornament, a certain atmosphere. Even the
ordinary ginger jar of commerce, if it be old enough, exhibits a most
alluring suggestiveness. These designs appear to be traditional on
common ginger jars half a century apart in point of time. There is a
background of mountains, and stretch of sky with a triangular flight
of birds, flying high. There is a tree in the foreground, and a rustic
homestead. On a bank a fisherman casts a line into the water, and away
on the expanse of lake stands a junk. The whole is crudely and hastily
drawn, and one jar, if not exactly the counterpart of another, has the
same details in the scene. But, curiously enough, there is a poetry
and depth of tone about these common ginger jars which is difficult to
define.

To arrive at a technical reason for these differences in styles is
to examine the theories governing the art of ceramics. To take the
overglaze painting; this may be compared to the canvas of the painter
which is covered with pigment. His sky is blue or red or yellow or
an admixture of all three; the reflections of light on the water are
touches of pigment. There is no part of the canvas over which his deft
brush has not travelled. The underglaze painter on porcelain is like
the etcher, who obtains his illumination from the uncovered surface of
the copper upon which he works. The untouched portion of the plate of
the etcher forms the wide expanse of sky, and gives luminosity to the
deeply bitten lines of his subject. Similarly, in underglaze painting
on porcelain, the dazzling white expanse of the body, afterwards to be
coated with limpid transparent glaze, is the background into which the
design of the artist must imperceptibly melt. It is this depth of tone
and atmosphere which give poetic charm to underglaze painting.

But the _subject_ is not left to take care of itself. Without pictorial
indefinition the work may still remain on the plain of formal
decoration even though that be superlatively conceived and executed.

[Illustration: VASE.

Painted in underglaze colours by V. Th. Fischer. Height 13 inches.]

[Illustration: VASE.

Painted in underglaze colours by C. Liisberg. Height 20 inches.]

What is it that one sees when one comes face to face for the
first time with a Copenhagen vase of this golden period? The merest
dilettante in porcelain-collecting must at once recognize something
that he will find nowhere else in his cabinets. In form there is
always, necessarily, a full expanse to carry the subject, if it be
landscape. Nor is there a front and a reverse, as in the old school of
conventionally treated landscapes circumscribed by panels. There is a
breadth and continuity of subject traversing the circumference of the
vase, which, from new points of view, offers new surprises.

The body is white and hard and of ivory-like closeness when seen by
transmitted light. The rich liquid glaze has a slight greenish tone
and has a surface like polished crystal. The quality of this glaze is
exceptionally fine and possesses artistic properties peculiarly its
own. In modelled subjects such as fish this is especially noticeable.
In the noble figure of a _Sea Lion_, this glaze simulates the original
so skilfully that the sensation conveyed is exactly that of the smooth,
sleek, satin-like texture of that animal's body. It is obvious that
with such a vehicle as this glaze the effects produced in landscape
painting are those seen in nature in the sun-pierced vaporous haze of a
climate remarkable for its exquisite tones.

In colour the subjects appear in low tones of subtle elusiveness,
never, by reason of the technique of the underglaze palette, departing
from the strictly limited range of colours we have enumerated. The
tones of all these are pitched in a minor key. The brilliance of the
painter in enamel is conspicuously absent. There is no scarlet, or
bright yellow, or mazarin blue, or vivid green. The charm of colour
lies in its exquisite delicacy. It is the highest ceramic landscape
painting offered to the delectation of those possessed of sufficient
connoisseurship to appreciate the supreme handling of a difficult
technique.

It departs from the Chinese prototypes in underglaze blue. The deep
blue of Nankin is delightful in its poetry, but it is a convention that
landscapes are painted all blue. Copenhagen becomes more realistic, but
no less poetical, with added touches of amber, and mauve, and grey, and
sage green, and the blue, pale and tender, carries out a colour scheme
which stamps this Western art as something original and ideal.

It is thus seen that in body and glaze and colouring Copenhagen has
excellent points challenging comparison with anything that has gone
before. But with these technical problems solved satisfactorily,
there is yet something to be added, which has created a reflective
school of design and elevated Copenhagen to its present status. This
quality, difficult to describe, and yet ever-present in the results
when submitted to definite criticism, may be roughly summarized as
consisting of two essential traits of disciplined art--the apt choice
of decorative subject and the complete mastery exercised in fittingly
decorating the object.

[Illustration: DECORATIVE MEMORIAL PLACQUE.

By Arnold Krog.

Commemorating the restoration of Ribe Cathedral, Denmark.]

Apart from the technical excellence of selection of idea and
symmetrical incorporation with the form under decoration, there is the
national spirit, which is the soul imparted to the work of artists
filled with intense love of nature. This charm, lightly and daintily
woven into the dreams which the porcelain conveys in dim mysterious
manner, cannot be captured by the snare of the imitator.

The Western potter hitherto had not quite realized that he must be a
poet as well as a potter. To study Copenhagen porcelain is to read
poetry conveyed in another medium than printing-ink and paper. Nor
is this new of the highest ceramic art. To contemplate old Chinese
porcelain is not to think in poetry but to speak in poetry. Great
potters have twin souls the world over. The Chinese themselves have
terms for their own ware which indicate the plane on which all great
ceramic art should stand. To one colour is given the term "the
moonlight," to another "the blue of the prune skin," to another "the
violet of the wild apple," to another "the liquid dawn," to yet another
"the red of the bean blossom." Descriptions of certain ware and certain
colours and glazes become little poems, such as the account of the
Ch'ai Yao--"As blue as the sky, as clear as a mirror, as thin as paper,
and as resonant as a musical stone of jade." Nor is Chinese literature
wanting in reiterated allusions to the beauty of the national
porcelain. The wine cups are likened to "disks of thinnest ice" or to
"tilted lotus leaves floating down a stream."

The strain of poetry, so pronouncedly a feature in modern Copenhagen
work, is noticeable even in the old overglaze decorated porcelain.
The innate love of nature found expression in its refusal to follow
stereotyped forms of ceramic decoration. The national note never
departed except during the decadence. The _Flora Danica_ service,
with its stiff and painstaking decorations in botanical style, was a
monument to national ceramic art. The modern spirit, with its landscape
and realism, is crystallized in a great gallery of placques and vases,
and may be said to embody the _Poetica Danica_--the new interpretation
of nature. The flowers are no longer botanical specimens pressed
between the pages of a ceramic album. They are painted _in situ_,
and become delicate units in dream pictures, beside still lakes or
embosomed in grassy dells.

=Intense National Sentiment of Copenhagen Style.=--The Renaissance
period is at once national and reflective of the moods of the land of
its origin. The illustrations appearing in this chapter faintly suggest
the luminosity of the originals, but in their selection an attempt has
been made to show that a certain ordered progress has been at work. The
earlier examples are significant of the lingering traces of Oriental
suggestion, rapidly and completely assimilated, and any mannerism,
if such there be, was pushed aside by the native growth of vigorous
inventiveness and the rich profusion of forms and designs not dependent
on any outside influence.

To compare Japanese art with that of Copenhagen is to compare two
parallel lines which only meet in infinity and never coincide. Truth
and sincerity, love of nature, and mastery of form are common to
the Japanese and the Danish ceramists. But the former reflect the
brilliance of colour harmonies of a land teeming with rich colour and
steeped in Oriental tradition. The mirror is held to national life and
sentiment, and accordingly movement, humour, poetry, are essentials in
Japanese pottery.

The art of Copenhagen equally reflects the national life and character
under a northern sky. Pensive, dreamy, tinged with the stillness of the
Arctic night, with its violet sky, the wistful art of the North never
attempts the sensuous moments of the art of the Far East. The beauty of
form is reticent and reposeful. The range of the _grand-feu_ colours
coincides exactly with the tender colours of the little kingdom, and
the melting glaze adds that luminosity which makes the Danish landscape
so _spirituelle_.

Danish art has never attempted to be Japanese; on the other hand, Japan
has seriously realized that the art of Copenhagen is worth the copying,
and has done this with a light heart.

Again and again one is struck with the originality of a design new
to ceramic decoration. The _Placque_, of the period 1896 to 1900
(illustrated, p. 207), is a case in point, and is almost the only
instance of a dallying with the romantically artificial. But the effect
is so charming and so poetical that it disarms criticism. What could
promise so little as a subject for decorative treatment? A pair of iron
gates, flanked with stone pillars surmounted by formal urns. An avenue
of poplars approached by the ascending steps of a terrace, stretching
from the foreground in two converging lines, with the solitary figure
of a woman in black in the middle distance. That is all. But the result
is an alluring picture of an old-world chateau. A touch of Southern
elegance and courtly grace makes itself evident in the formal scene,
with its pathos of the figure symbolizing lonely sorrow and the dark
shadow of the chapel at the end of the grove.

It is possible, without eliminating much, to trace the steady growth
of temperamental art during a quarter of a century in successive stages
of five years. True to first impelling motives, the art of the factory
has never turned back. The modern movement known as _l'art nouveau_,
which swept across Europe with its meaningless swirls and curves, left
no trace on the work of the Royal Copenhagen Factory. Rich in the
possession and eager in the fulfilment of its own original conceptions,
it had no need of extraneous impulses, and has remained unstirred by
ephemeral art movements. The illustrations in this chapter are arranged
chronologically as far as possible, and it will be seen that the
subjects become as Danish as the ballad of King Christian. The gallery
is rich in its dreamy suggestiveness, the ceramic record of reposeful
scenes luxuriating in luscious somnolence--the sea, the sand-dunes, the
wild swans, and geese, and mallards, the wood with its deer and wild
life, the secluded lake with its denizens, the meadows, and the cattle
of the farm lands.

[Illustration: DESSERT PLATE.

With perforated border and rim decorated with scale design in blue, and
having national Danish pattern in centre.]

There has been a process of fermentation going on in modern Danish
pictorial art, and its influence is seen on the porcelain produced
at the royal factory. It is new because it is everlastingly old--the
worship of Nature. There is in modern Copenhagen porcelain the tender,
dreamy melancholy of the old Danish ballads. It is like some magic
story told in the twilight. Everything is silent, nebulous, steeped
in fragrant yet pathetic memories. There is a subtle and refined
introspection, an æsthetic yearning akin to sadness.

Every Dane remembers Jacobsen's whimsical visionary Mogens, who hums
softly to himself the refrain--"_I Längsel, I Längsel jeg lever!_"
(Longing, longing I live!).

This tristful ideality is a note in literature not far to seek. The
Danish poets have reflected Nature's moods with throbbing ecstasy,
tinged with sombre forebodings. It comes with unexpected pathos as an
ending to Christian Winther's poem _En Vandrer_ (A Wanderer), who,
after a pilgrimage through woodland glades of summerland, exclaims at
the sight of the cloud-capped mountains in the distance--

    _Og--naar de er bestegne
    Imorgen--ak!--hvad saa?_

  (And when they are climbed, to-morrow, alas! what then?)

The outlook of the Copenhagen potter-artists reflects the genius
of inspired vision. The face of Nature is transfigured. This
interpretation links poesy and pensive art indissolubly together in
these ceramic poems palpitating with sensitiveness.

A touch of tender melancholy pervades the art of the potter. He has
caught the pale green of the sea, the vibrating light on the long sand
dunes and the silvery vaporous clouds that fret the horizon. To take
a Copenhagen vase with its sea-scape and dancing spray and pack of
scudding storm-clouds, tempts one to place it to one's ear as children
do sea-shells; surely one shall hear the sound of the leaping surge and
the roll of the breakers!

Bathed in liquid light, that soft effulgence peculiar to Denmark,
where the sunlight is so soft and subdued and nothing stands out in
harsh contrast, the scenery lends itself to soothing reverie. It has
been given to few to commune with Nature in her melting moods, "like
Niobe all tears." Corot stands for all time as having pierced the veil,
and Cazin has caught the quivering play of ghostly light rarely made
known to mortals. The modern Copenhagen potters have, "daring greatly,"
communed with Nature in like manner. They have essayed to "snatch
a grace beyond the reach of art"--or of ceramic art. But success
is theirs. The transparent atmosphere lending a pearly tone to the
trembling stretches of soft verdure and the cool limpid shadows resting
on the still meres are reflected in the porcelain. The pictures are
soothing and restful; we can hear the flutter of the mallards among the
reeds.

Of the _paysage intime_ there is profusion of wealth in the long
vista of the low-lying seashore of a beautiful land, the wheeling
gulls, the stretch of dunes, and the circling procession of clouds
over a wind-swept sea. The poetry and dreamy searchings of Copenhagen
porcelain have held the mirror to Nature. With outer eye illumined with
spiritual vision, the potters have translated the soul of Nature's
physical beauty into porcelain. Here is the natural--but there is the
vast, unfathomed supernatural. Can it be possible that there are yet
other secrets of the magic of the Northlands? Will the inner vision
bring forth into the furnace the dreams of the old world deep in the
Northern heart, buried these long centuries? Can the potter poet call
up the fleets of ghostly ships that set forth from Trondhjem Fjord with
King Olaf and Olgafar the mystic boat with neither sail nor helm nor
galley oar? All the wealth of dead ages lies as a hidden treasure-house
for him who can with wizardry open these portals and bring back the
Northern poesie. The Valrafy, or Raven of Battle, loved the swell and
the roar of the fierce Northern Main. The ocean sprite frequented the
cold waters of the Baltic and flashed, icy bearded, through the rack
and cloud of storm. Mermen and mermaidens still plash in the sea-caves
where mortals venture not, and to this day in story and tradition they
are treasured in the hearts of fisher-folk and those who go down to the
sea in ships.

But these are vain imaginings, and to ask more of an art already
raised to a plane of evasive and incommunicable inventiveness is to
clamour impertinently for the impossible.


TABLE OF MARKS[8]

  Used by the leading Painters and Modellers during the Renaissance
  Period from 1885.

[8] These marks are published by the courtesy of the Royal Copenhagen
Porcelain Factory, being supplied from official data, and are strictly
copyright.

All these initials or signatures of painters are used in conjunction
with the factory mark of the three blue lines.

       *       *       *       *       *

Various signatures of ARNOLD KROG, Art Director of the Royal Copenhagen
Porcelain Factory since 1885 to the present time.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

Examples of the diverse character of the work of Professor Krog
permeate the Renaissance period, and include--

    Blue fluted service (continuous invention of new forms with
      elaborate decoration)--

        e.g. Dessert Plate (illustrated, p. 249).

    Vases with landscapes and bird subjects.

    Placques--

      Birds, e.g. illustration, p. 203.

      Series of heraldic placques, e.g. illustration, p. 243.

    Figure Subjects--

      Various, including quadrupeds and birds, e.g. Polar bear, Peacock
        on an urn, etc.

  Initials of C. F. LIISBERG.

    Sometimes the name is signed in full.

    Painter of landscapes, quadrupeds, birds, and flowers.

    Modeller of animal subjects.

    Came to factory in 1885, died in 1909.

[Illustration]

For examples of the beauty of the late Hr. Liisberg's work, see
illustrations:--

  Vase (p. 239).

  Placques (pp. 211, 221, 231).

  C. MORTENSEN. Painter of landscape and animal subjects.

    Modeller of animals.

    1887-1901.

[Illustration]

  OLUF JENSEN. Painter of flower subjects.

    1885 to present time.

[Illustration]

  AUG HALLIN. Painter.

    1885-1895.

[Illustration]

  GOTFRED RODE. Painter of landscapes and animals.

    1895 to present time.

[Illustration]

  See illustration, p. 217.

  VILH. TH. FISCHER. Painter of animal subjects.

  1894 to present time.

[Illustration]

    For illustrations of Hr. Fischer's work, see pp. 211, 217, 239.

  STEPHAN USSING. Painter of flowers and landscapes.

    1894 to present time.

[Illustration]

  FRK. A. SMIDTH. Painter of landscapes and flowers.

    1885 to present time.

[Illustration]

    For example of Frk. Smidth's work, see illustration, p. 227.

  FRK. M. HØST. Painter of animals and flowers.

[Illustration]

  FRK. BERTHA NATHANIELSEN. Painter of flowers and landscapes.

[Illustration]

  FRK. JENNY MEYER. Painter of flower subjects.

[Illustration]

  FRK. C. ZERNICHOW. Painter of children.

[Illustration]

  GERHARD HEILMANN. Painter of landscapes and animals.

[Illustration]

The following mark is found on examples of crystalline glazes of the
Renaissance period:--

[Illustration]

  This is the signature of Hr. V. ENGELHARDT, the chemist at the royal
      factory, whose researches have perfected the glazes and won
      considerable distinction for the factory in European ceramics.

    1892 to present time.

    For examples of Hr. Engelhardt's work, see illustrations, pp. 293,
      297, 299, 303.

The following marks are incised and are of modellers, and are used in
conjunction with the factory mark of the three blue lines.

  AXEL LOCHER. Modeller of figures.

[Illustration]

  E. NIELSEN. Modeller of animals.

[Illustration]

  CHRISTIAN THOMSEN. Modeller of figures and animals.

    For examples, see illustrations, pp. 271, 275, 279, 285.

[Illustration]

  THEODOR MADSEN. Modeller of animals.

[Illustration]

  KNUD KYHN. Modeller of animals.

[Illustration]

  FRK. A. PEDERSEN. Modeller of animals.

[Illustration]

  FRK. M. NIELSEN. Modeller of birds and fishes.

    1903 to present time.

[Illustration]

  CARL MARTIN HANSEN. Modeller of figures.

    1905 to present day.

[Illustration]

  GERHARD HENNING. Modeller and painter of figures.

    1909 to present time.

[Illustration]

This mark of the factory, with the crown and words "Royal Copenhagen"
inscribed in circle are in _green_. The three lines beneath are in blue.

[Illustration]

The use of this mark is from the year 1889, on many examples for the
English and American markets.

These marks of the crown and the three lines, _in blue_, are used on
all copies of the old models of the =overglaze= Müller period. These
are found on reproductions of old and rare examples of the early
days, made by the factory on traditional lines. The revival of this
_overglaze_ painting is a new impulse. The artist's initials are added
to the crown in colour or gold.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER IX

FIGURE SUBJECTS AND GROUPS

RENAISSANCE PERIOD




CHAPTER IX

FIGURE SUBJECTS AND GROUPS

_RENAISSANCE PERIOD_

  Form _versus_ colour--The technique of modelling--The sound
      principles of old Copenhagen porcelain--Underglaze succeeds
      overglaze colouring--The love of animal life--Peasant types and
      children.


The highest test to apply to a figure subject in porcelain is that
it should be criticized in the biscuit stage. The crudities, the
disproportioned ornament or the restless lack of cohesion become at
once evident, without the touches of colour added to conceal the
poverty of the art.

In our old factories at Plymouth and Bristol in the hard paste and
at Bow in the soft paste, owing to an imperfect knowledge of the
technique, fire-cracks often appeared in the body of objects intended
for ornament. Collectors of experience and mature judgment know exactly
what the potters did in these trying circumstances. The scientific
examination of the treasures of the china cabinet has revealed many
of the potter's tricks. A fire-crack becomes the body of a butterfly
gaudily painted in rich colours. This is one instance of the use of
colour to conceal the inexactitude of the craftsman. Similarly, in
figures it becomes a speculative question as to what their character
would turn out to be when they were stripped of the gorgeous costumes
with which they are decked. Many a Chelsea figure with rich brocaded
surtout, yellow vest, and breeches of amazing colour in scale pattern
of peacock hues, would turn out to be a veritable scarecrow if stripped
of the glories of pigment. The colour has deceived the eye in regard to
form.

This love of colour and disregard of the niceties of form has betrayed
many enthusiasts into going into raptures over monstrosities which
would not bear the light of day upon them if they were in biscuit
state. It is a matter for conjecture how many Staffordshire figures or
Toby Jugs, minus pigment, would call for a word of praise judged solely
on their modelling and symmetrical beauty.

In Copenhagen, from the early overglaze painted figures of the Müller
period to the underglaze decorated figures of the Renaissance style,
there is one quality that they have in common. This is especially
noticeable in comparing them with work of other factories over an
extended period of time. They exhibit with unerring precision the
limitations of the potter in regard to the medium in which he works.
At no time has the Copenhagen modeller attempted, save in the decadent
period when he copied Thorvaldsen's sculpture, to encroach upon the
work of the silversmith or the glass-blower. He has been true to the
clay whose properties in the fire he knows so well. The technique of
modelling in clay follows laws as definite as can well be laid down.
It is the same in all crafts where strict observance is paid to the
use for which objects are created. The Japanese ivory-carver in his
_netsukes_, or ivory fastenings for garments, carves them as nearly
oval or round as is possible. It may be a curled-up mouse, or an old
man with a barrel, or any other fanciful subject, but the absence of
spikes is the sign that the work is old and not modern carving for the
European markets, when such objects bristle with points.

Similarly, in figures, for many reasons they should have no jutting
arms or over out-thrust ornaments. First because in use they will be
broken off. A glance at the damaged specimens on the china shelf will
at once show the mistakes of the potter. Rarely at the Copenhagen
factory did the modeller fancy for the moment he was a silver-worker
and leave a projecting arm. There is one instance in an old figure most
noticeable. A seller of _kringler_ has an outstretched hand offering
his ware for sale, but that is missing in the example the writer
examined.

Another reason for the avoidance of undue extension is the technical
difficulty of supporting this in the oven during firing. Clay in the
oven requires every assistance to keep it from warping or bending over,
and to introduce unnecessary difficulties in modelling is to produce
bad art. This, coupled with the fact that porcelain shrinks in firing
to about six-sevenths of its original size, is sufficient reason for
the artistic potter to keep strictly within the limitations of his
technique.

=The Sound Principles of Old Copenhagen Porcelain.=--Throughout
the Müller period it will be seen how carefully these axioms were
followed. In regard to the styles of decoration, the old school worked
in overglaze painting and the Renaissance school employs underglaze
painting. They are in complete contrast to one another in the treatment
of a subject. The narrow range of underglaze colours in a measure
limits the results of the decorator of figures. But it must not be
imagined that the overglaze school of painting, by reason of its freer
palette, allowed the modelling of the figures to be less than ideal.
A reference to the Müller chapter on _Figure Subjects_ will show that
a great many examples were produced in white or in biscuit, and were
thus entirely independent of colour to help out any deficiencies in
modelling, if such existed.

An indication of the strong individuality of the figure modelling of
the Juliane Marie period, is forthcoming in the fact that the factory
to-day is producing some of the coloured figures of that period in
white.

=Underglaze succeeds Overglaze Colouring.=--Concerning the Renaissance
figures as a whole, there is a tendency to produce them in white;
this bespeaks great strength of modelling, and, varied as they are
in character, dealing with different phases of life, they are never
insipid. But it may be advanced that the underglaze colours are not
extended enough in their range to do justice to some of the costume
subjects. It seems to the present writer, and perhaps the criticism
is confirmed by a pronounced tendency in that direction by the latest
artistic movement in the factory, that many of the modern figures, such
as peasant women in costume and the soldier in Hans Andersen's story
of the _Tinder Box_, would give more complete results in overglaze
painting. This revival of overglaze painting in Copenhagen in figures,
and in combination with underglaze work, is a new development which is
being curiously watched by connoisseurs and technical experts.

The underglaze colours find complete harmony in the decoration of
figures of birds, and are delicate and true to nature in the modelled
fish, which have a graceful charm especially their own. They are a
perfect medium for placques and vases, depicting the long vaporous
clouds stretched across a leaden sky, the silvery blue transparent
billows tossing in from the Baltic, or in the foreground streaming
wearily over the level grey-yellow sand, flecked with the lilac
seashore flowers and tufts of grass on the sand-dunes. The pale sad
blues, the delicate greens, the amber, and pink, and dun-grey tones
verging into violet which are transmuted in the _grand feu_ convey the
faint colours, the mist and the sadness, the storm and the rainy air,
the dim haze extending over meadow and lake, and the tremulously yellow
tones of sunset. The landscape is tinged with that soft melancholy
which tones down all harshness and softens all lines. Meditative,
somnolent, indecisive, liquid, limpid, and alluring in tender serenity,
these characteristics appeal to the soul of the artist as belonging
to the dream country of lakes and beech-woods and sand-hills and
kaleidoscopic waters. These intangible and wraith-like impressions have
been momentarily snatched by the potters and painters at the factory,
nor has anything been dropped in the fiery ordeal of the furnace,
and they stand in ceramic art as a permanent national record of the
homeland of the Dane.

=The Love of Animal Life.=--There is one point at which the modern
figure subjects break new ground. The Renaissance period is rich in its
love of the animal kingdom. The wheeling gulls, the wild swans, and
geese, and mallards, wading and diving birds, and storks, and owls have
been modelled. The wild life of Denmark has provided a new field. This
is studied from nature. There is a figure of a turkey, a denizen of the
factory grounds, modelled from life. What other factory in the world is
there where one may meet, as did the writer, a turkey with her brood
being ushered from the garden up a staircase into a pen in one of the
studios? The original with her brood may be seen illustrated, p. 337.

[Illustration: FIGURE OF WOMAN AND COW.

Painted in underglaze colours. Modelled by Chr. Thomsen.]

Animals and fish have obtained full recognition in the gallery of
figure subjects. The Zoological Gardens in close proximity to the
factory has provided the Polar bear and other studies. A notable
example of fine modelling is a _Sea Lion_, which is life-like in its
faithful representation. The modelled fish, with the liquid glaze
suggestive that they have just been captured, are a remarkable feature
and are true in every detail--as true as were the botanical specimens
on the _Flora Danica_ service. They come as decorative objects as
surprisingly beautiful in form as are the birds, and their variety
captivates the lover of natural form and subdued colour.

=Peasant Types and Children.=--The peasant life of the country, the
costume, now fast disappearing, and the old-world character, still
happily preserved in many districts, were reproduced in the overglaze
figures of an earlier period. This love of veracity in costume and
environment is a feature which is traditional in the factory; it
therefore comes as no surprise to find that peasant types are produced
with underglaze treatment in colours. The only example of an animal in
the overglaze Müller period is the _Woman milking a Cow_, and a similar
subject of a Milkmaid and Cow may be seen treated in modern manner in
underglaze style, with delicate suggestion of colour in the pale grey
dress, delicate blue shawl, and kerchief with infinitesimal spots. The
cow is white save for one or two splashes of light brown.

If Cupids be child-life, then the old style offers scores of examples,
but the modern child has been denuded of his wings and is employed in
other occupations than twining wreaths of roses around lovers. The
usual children of the china shelf are armed with baskets and posies,
and are Cupid-like in their character. But in the Renaissance figures
of Copenhagen children the spirit of childhood is present. The simple
peasant _Child_ (illustrated, p. 279), with burden of bottle and
basket, is as true to life as the faithful record of an old Dutch
master. It is, possibly without meaning to be, symbolic of the life of
toil of the peasant. It is a tale the clay tells of the busy life of
the fields. Even a tiny child has to bear her share of the long day's
work. It is just that sad touch of reflection which illuminates great
works of art, and it is here present. A figure such as this is worth,
as a work of art, fifty meaningless Rockingham _Flower Boys_ or Chelsea
manikins in grotesque costume.

[Illustration: FIGURE OF BOY AND CALF.

Painted in underglaze colours. Modelled by Chr. Thomsen.]

The _Old Woman_, modelled by the same artist, with bonnet and shawl
with fringe, represents a type now belonging to days rapidly passing.
The character of an obsolescent type has been caught with exceptional
cleverness. There is another figure of an old woman less robust, and
indicating less lovable qualities, with Bible in hand, and, if the
truth be told, a somewhat crafty look. Such types as these will be
recognized by those who know Denmark well; they are racy of the soil,
and represent the acute perception of the modern potters in seizing
disappearing types. Such crystallized character forms a permanent
and very valuable record of the remoter side of country life, and is
instinct with a truer feeling of art than whole galleries representing
impossible porcelain cavaliers and ladies in costume the like of which
no man has ever seen.

In dealing with the underglaze ware from its first application to
utilitarian services to its subtle use in placques and vases with
_grand-feu_ colours, and finally in figure subjects and groups, it
will be seen, both in regard to mastery of technique and artistic
evolution, the natural order of development is that given in Chapter II
in examining the stages of overglaze painting and modelling. At that
period the order proceeds on lines of its own, and the usual stages of
progression were influenced by the fact that in the early days of the
factory Luplau, the first modelling-master, brought his experience to
bear on the work, and figure subjects of a high order were attempted
almost from the beginning. Here, in the Renaissance period, by slower
evolution and particularly sure processes, the modelling of figures has
arrived at a state of undoubted excellence. Apart from the first early
inspiration when things Japanese broke upon Europe with overwhelming
force, the Copenhagen artists have obtained their inspiration from
within. They have followed the instincts of their own race, and they
have developed on lines essentially their own, both in form, in colour,
and in technique.

The Europe of sixty years ago was sated with meaningless formalities.
Tired with the repetition of the scanty stock of Greek ornaments, and
in search of novelty, it is only natural that men should turn their
eyes to the only living schools of decorative art then in existence.
In India, China, and Japan was found the freshness that design
needed. When Müller was producing his masterpieces in clay, Wedgwood
was transplanting Greek gods and goddesses into Staffordshire, and
Chippendale was fashioning his fretwork angles to tables and chairs,
taken direct from China. Between those days and the present is the
great wave of classicism which dug out Etruscan vases and remodelled
them, brought the Latin chair into the early nineteenth-century
drawing-room, and with stilted affectation of simplicity drove elegance
and comfort far afield.

[Illustration: PEASANT FIGURES.

Painted in underglaze colours. Modelled by Chr. Thomsen.]

Of all Oriental schools it is thus natural that the Japanese, with
the unexpected and unsymmetrical treatment of design, should appeal
most at such a time. The true and fine feeling of the Japanese for
birds and beasts, for the flower world and for landscape in its larger
features, is shown in all their design, from the small ivory carvings
to the lacquer work or the colour prints of Katsuchika Hokusai.
The West has learned much from the East in the nineteenth century.
Whistler's Nocturnes and Aubrey Beardsley's pen drawings catch their
germ of novelty from sources other than European.

But "East is East and West is West," and Copenhagen underglaze
decoration has produced the tones of the Northern world. Of all curious
happenings, it is singular to record that to-day the Japanese ceramic
artists are fashioning their work in the same subdued tones, and
producing similar subjects in figures, to the little band of ceramic
workers in Denmark. In the history of the manufacture of porcelain
this is not exactly a new thing. In England we have Worcester copying
Chinese examples and inventing a pseudo mark, and the Bow and Lowestoft
factories copying Worcester's copy of Chinese originals. Meissen and
Sèvres have both suffered heavily from votaries who have loved the
originals so well that they could not forbear from imitating them. In
England, at Worcester and at Coalport, the copyists excelled in their
love for the Sèvres and Meissen originals by putting the marks of those
factories on their productions.

It is a remarkable fact that Denmark, with no coal and with no
minerals, and with no quartz and no china clay, should stand to-day
as the leading porcelain factory in Europe. In the admirable article
on _Ceramics_ in the new edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_
(1911) this verdict stands: "The most admirable result of this
revived interest in Japanese art was, however, developed at the Royal
Copenhagen works, the productions of which are not only famous all over
the world, but have set a new style in porcelain decorations which is
being followed at most of the Continental factories." In connection
with figure subjects the same critic recognizes their precious
qualities. "The Royal Copenhagen works have also produced a profusion
of skilfully modelled animals, birds, and fishes, either in pure white
or tinted after nature with the same underglaze colours. Other European
factories have adopted the modern Copenhagen style of decoration."

Something should be said in passing of the domestic influence of
the Royal Copenhagen Factory upon the art of Denmark. Like a sturdy
oak-tree, the old factory has continued in its steady growth from
the days of Queen Juliane Marie. It has weathered many storms, and
now proudly rears its head as a beloved landmark. Its influence on
generations of artists has been deep and lasting. It has scattered its
_largesse_, and its sheltering branches have lent their protecting
shade to many grateful pilgrims. In common with many another great
factory, it has added new impulses to the centre of its origin. Like
the acorn dropping from the parent tree, productive of flourishing
young oaks, so has it been with the royal factory. It is pleasurable to
be able to record here the successes of a Copenhagen porcelain factory
conducted by Messrs. Bing and Gröndahl. Their art is fresh and winning,
their painters have caught the touch of the royal factory, and their
modellers have found inspiration in the work marked with the three blue
lines. The Bing and Gröndahl ware is marked with the initials B & G. It
was originated in the year 1853, and has been marked with a successful
career. Many of its productions are to be found in museums side by side
with work of the royal factory. There is a spirit of friendly rivalry
between the ancestor and the youthful scion. This is only natural. But
the old oak and the young tree will still continue to flourish side by
side, and the old oak will always be the monarch of the forest, even a
hundred years hence, when painstaking collectors wrangle as to dates
and marks and weigh the B & G with the three blue lines, and find, as
undoubtedly they will, beauty and poetry reminiscent of the Danish art.

Many of the early figure subjects of the Renaissance period were of
surprising originality, and in some cases only one example was made.
The collectors who were fortunate enough to secure these examples have
since realized how happy was their choice. There is one figure of a
_Black Cat_, exhibited at the Paris Exhibition, 1900, which has never
been repeated in black, owing to the great difficulty experienced in
manipulating the glaze and the hazardous nature of the experiment.
White cats have been modelled in similar fashion, but there is only one
black Copenhagen cat, and naturally such a rare piece is exceedingly
valuable.

Among some of the later productions in figures are some finely modelled
subjects taken from Hans Christian Andersen's _Stories_. Who does not
remember the _Tinder Box_, that tale of enchantment where the soldier,
coming home from the wars, marching along the road with knapsack on
back, meets a witch who induces him to descend into the great cavern
and procure the magic tinder box. A dainty little group in white
represents the _Soldier and the Witch_. We know of his sudden rise
to fortune, armed with a talisman as potent as Aladdin's Lamp. The
sleeping princess imprisoned in a copper castle is brought to him by
the faithful canine genii of the tinder box. How he narrowly escaped
the gallows and finally took the princess as his bride is one of our
own nursery stories, and there is a Copenhagen figure group showing the
soldier with his arm around the princess in soldierly and lover-like
fashion.

[Illustration: GROUP IN WHITE PORCELAIN.

_The Princess and the Swineherd._

(From Hans Christian Andersen's _Stories_.)

Modelled by Chr. Thomsen.]

The story of the _Swineherd_ provides another subject, and what
grace and elegance and beauty are in the lines, and delicacy in the
sentiment. It is an idyll in porcelain. Away with pierrots and mimes,
the fevered extravagances of imagination run riot in bizarre form and
garish colour! Such a group as this should have a niche to itself in
the china cabinet. It is superlatively chaste and reticent, daintily
conceived and faultless in technique. The story is of the prince who
became swineherd to the father of the weary princess. His taste for
music took a mechanical turn in the whimsical invention of a pot that
played tunes when it boiled, and, among other like toys, a rattle
that would play waltzes and polkas. His hobby gained the fancy of the
princess, who had to buy them with kisses. The porcelain represents the
completion of the fairy-tale bargain. Alas! there is no happy ending,
for the kissing became so fast and furious that the swineherd threw
off his disguise, became prince on a sudden, and departed home to his
kingdom, in disgust with a princess who could look with disdain on his
presents of a rose and a nightingale because they were only natural,
and set her affections on the trivialities of a swineherd.

Among the figures calling for regard in the highest sense, that
of the _Peacock_ standing on an urn, modelled by Arnold Krog, is
of surprising grace and symmetry. Its modelling is at once true to
nature and true to the requirements of the potter's art. A model on a
lower plane would have placed the peacock on a base or tree-stump and
utilized this as a support, and no figure would be complete without
the gorgeous colouring of the tail. This is exactly what happens in
a Derby figure of a Peacock (at the Victoria and Albert Museum). On
a rococo base covered with a wealth of coloured flowers, a peacock
stands in brilliant natural colouring. But in the Copenhagen figure
the drooping tail is support enough in the kiln, and the natural pose
of the bird, proud and erect, conveys dignity and beauty of form. The
treatment at Copenhagen is exactly the opposite to the old school of
ceramic artists. Here it is beauty of form first and colour in reticent
subjection as an adjunct, and the results are undeniably superlative.




CHAPTER X

CRYSTALLINE GLAZES




CHAPTER X

CRYSTALLINE GLAZES

  _Flambé_ or transmutation glazes of the Chinese potters--The Royal
      Copenhagen Factory produces the first specimen of crystallized
      glaze in 1886--Blue crackled glaze produced with design under
      control.


During the last decade of the nineteenth century the Western potter
came under the spell of the modern chemist. Scientific study applied
to the body and glaze and vitrifaction of the materials composing
porcelain and faience, together with a closer study of the exact
conditions of temperatures in the kilns, resulted in the discovery of
certain well-defined decorative qualities in connection with glazes
which, after considerable experiment, offered practically a new field
for colour-work of a very beautiful nature.

In the _flambé_ or transmutation glazes for which the Chinese potters
were renowned, the effects of variegated or splashed colour are due
to the capricious action of the fire on the glazes during the firing
process. The single-coloured glazes of the Chinese applied to vases
and other objects have been much prized by Europeans. The tints are
very numerous, sea-green or celadon, yellow, red, blue, purple, brown,
black, and other tones. These include the celebrated _sang-de-bœuf_
colour of French collectors, so highly prized in China. It is thought
probable that many of these single-colour glazes have been applied at a
somewhat lower temperature, termed by the French _demi-grand feu_.

The mottled classes owe their appearance less to the difference in
the colouring matter than to the manner in which it is applied.
They are termed in French _flambé_, and there is no doubt that they
were originally accidentally produced. According to the letters of
a Jesuit missionary, Père d'Entrecolles, written in the early years
of the eighteenth century, such vases were called _Yao pien_ or
_transmutation_ vases. Such types, with turquoise colour passing
into green, green melting into purple, and amber fading into grey,
are suggestive of the permutation of colour harmonies which these
transmutation glazes undergo in the furnace.

Beside the _flambé_ glazes there are crackled glazes of turquoise-blue,
apple-green, or of greyish white. This crackle porcelain is now
artificially produced, but it doubtless owes its origin to accident and
caprice of firing.

[Illustration: POLAR BEARS ON AN ICE FLOE.

Modelled by C. E. Bonnesen. Crystalline glaze by V. Engelhardt.]

In _flambé_ glazes an English potter, Mr. Bernard Moore, of Longton,
has succeeded in producing _sang-de-bœuf_ colour with delightful
gradations of tone; unhappily, some of these pieces were destroyed by
fire at the Brussels Exhibition in 1910.

=Copenhagen produces the First Crystalline Glaze.=--At the Copenhagen
factory _grand-feu_ coloured glazes have been developed in a remarkable
manner. The crystal glaze, the serpent-skin, the tiger-eye, and
crackled glaze, as well as many other varieties, show effects which
hitherto have been unknown in porcelain, and have won the admiration
of all connoisseurs. The inception of the crystalline glaze was due to
Hr. Clement, the chemist at the Royal Copenhagen Factory, and it was
owing to the indefatigable energy and experiments of Hr. Clement that,
in 1886, the first piece of porcelain with crystalline glaze achieved a
record for the Copenhagen laboratory and studio. Since that day other
European potters have succeeded in producing crystalline glazed ware of
exceptional beauty.

We illustrate a fine specimen of the early crystalline glaze of
Copenhagen now preserved at the Museum of the National Porcelain
Manufactory at Sèvres. It represents a frog on a leaf. "We should like
specially to point out," says M. Edouard Garnier, the Director of the
Museum at Sèvres, writing in 1894, "a large water-lily leaf on which a
frog is imbedded in a thin layer of ice, which it has just succeeded
in breaking. We have never seen a more striking example of what may be
attained by a purely scientific process applied to art decoration, and
we cannot repress the wish that this example may be followed by our
modern ceramists." This is one of Arnold Krog's fine conceptions.

This specimen of the work of the Copenhagen chemist, Hr. V. Engelhardt,
in crystallized glaze, has been followed by many notable achievements
on his part. In 1902 there was a figure of a _Polar Bear_ lapping
water, modelled by Arnold Krog and produced in crystalline glaze by
Hr. Engelhardt. This, of which only thirty pieces were made, was
executed for an artistic club in Paris. Another fine subject is that
representing two Polar Bears on the ice, one mounted on a frozen
pinnacle. The whole is a skilful piece of modelling by C. E. Bonnesen,
and crystalline glazing by Hr. V. Engelhardt.

[Illustration: FROG IMBEDDED IN ICE ON A WATER-LILY LEAF.

Modelled by Arnold Krog. Crystalline glaze by V. Engelhardt.

Period 1891-1895.

(_At Sèvres Museum._)]

[Illustration: VASES.

Designed by Arnold Krog. Crystalline glaze by V. Engelhardt.]

New shapes are continually being invented, and a long chain
of experiments in the laboratory has resulted in the production of
some very remarkable examples of colouring which are always welcome
to collectors, who are quick to realize that no two examples can
ever be the same. All colours can be handled in this manner. The
range is a wide one, and the surprising gradations of tone have a
charm undoubtedly their own, and not unworthy to be regarded as
representative of some of the most wonderful creations of the modern
potter. The metallic oxides in the hands of the twentieth-century
chemist become possessed of magical properties and are transformed into
tender harmonies vibrating with exquisite tones. Yellows, and blues,
and browns merge into mauve or grey, in delightful tenderness, and
black and white are included in the colour schemes of which this style
is now capable.

=Blue Crackled Glaze.=--In regard to crackled glazes there is evidence
that they are coming more under the governance of the chemist. There is
a beautiful deep blue variety produced at Copenhagen, with a network
of crackle graduated to a nicety, now swelling, when on the belly of
the beaker or vase, and now contracting into minute meshes when on the
slender neck. This is completely under mechanical control. As yet blue
is the only colour produced in this style.

At the Brussels Exhibition, 1910, the Sèvres factory exhibited some
large vases with crystalline glaze evidently under the complete mastery
of the potter and chemist. These vases were of a very fine character,
and the suggestion arises that at no far distant date the glazes now
termed "transmutation" or adventitious will be completely mastered by
the latest developments of modern science as applied to pottery, and
thus "transmutation" will be a word of the past.

The technique of Copenhagen differs from that of Sèvres or of Berlin.
In these latter cases the crystals appear like spots on the surface,
whereas in Copenhagen ware the crystals have a more subtle and intimate
incorporation with the glaze. They never stand on the surface, and
often, as in the mellow brown glaze, they lie beneath and glow in
reflected light.

A series of effects in broken colour, delicate in marking and veined
and mottled in most pleasing character, is being attempted in vases.
We illustrate several types in whole and partial crystallization,
which lose considerably by appearing as black-and-white illustrations.
Such vases are conspicuous for their revelry in colour, not the hard,
dense, opaque colours of the old Chinese single glazes, but the limpid,
vibrating, restless subtleties of Nature's own play of pulsating
colours in changeful mood--the dazzling and fairy-like opalescence
of the frost and the deep blue of the ice cave, or the pale amber
sand-dunes imperceptibly fading into a translucent green stretch of
waters, with the vaporous haze of a violet sky. In the white heat of
the modern furnace the flowers of a prehistoric day, which have lain
buried in the coal seams of an alien land, transmute the dull clay and
the mineral glaze under the hand of the modern magician into colour
nocturnes.

[Illustration: VASES.

With Crystalline glazes by V. Engelhardt.]




CHAPTER XI

COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE




CHAPTER XI

COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE

  The inception of a new technique--The slow growth of a new art--The
      old masters of majolica--The great promise of a new school--The
      rich output of colour and inventive form.

[Illustration: COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE.

Dish, with tropical bird, decorated in rich colours. Designed by
Christian Joachim.]


The student of ceramic art well knows that porcelain and earthenware,
although as poles asunder in their technique, do oftentimes touch
one another in apparent affinity. For instance, what is more earthen
than the brown crumbling body of the Dutch delft ware? It is a poor
relation of porcelain. But the Dutch potter had in mind the great
prototypes of the East. His dishes and his jars were an attempt to
copy blue-and-white Kang-He porcelain. He covered his brown body
with a white enamel and painted his tulips and his Batavian-Chinese
designs to imitate the Dutch East India Company's examples he had
before him. He created a new art, but he started as a copyist.
Beautiful as is Delft, it is really only a simulation in earthenware of
blue-and-white porcelain. Similarly in regard to English earthenware,
with the noteworthy exceptions of a few types essentially true to the
technique of earthenware, it is singular how peculiarly obtuse the
Staffordshire potters have been to the limitations of earthenware.
They have assiduously attempted to bring it into line with porcelain
in its decoration and its appearance. The line of demarcation between
earthenware and porcelain has become in England very indefinite, owing
to the fact that true porcelain is not manufactured in this country.
In consequence, the artificial composition of the body of English
porcelain, where calcined bones form an addition to the Chinese
formula of true porcelain, has brought it into closer relationship
with earthenware than is the case in any other European porcelain.
"Semi-porcelain," a term in English ceramics, is not to be found
elsewhere. It is still a moot-point whether to classify Wedgwood's
jasper ware as earthenware or porcelain. "Ironstone china," a
hardware introduced by Mason in 1830 and copied by other potters, is
earthenware, and the instances could be multiplied of confusion in
nomenclature. But where, as on the Continent, only hard paste that is
true porcelain in the Chinese manner is produced, save at Sèvres, the
distinction between this and earthenware is most clearly defined.

[Illustration: COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE.

Placque, with parrot, decorated in rich colours by Christian Joachim.]

At Copenhagen, therefore, the manufacture of faience at a porcelain
factory was a leap into the unknown. Not only were different kilns to
be employed, but a different technique and especial conditions governed
the manufacture. The theories which had been skilfully put into
practice and the ideals which had been reached in the art of porcelain
were alien to the new departure in the field of faience. To have welded
together the two arts and the two techniques would have ruined the
enterprise at its commencement. The two streams were allowed to run
apart, and the result is an artistic achievement no less noteworthy
than the Renaissance of the Royal Copenhagen porcelain. The mantle of
Philip Schou has descended on his son-in-law, Frederik Dalgas, who has
ably continued the traditions of his predecessor in the management of
this national enterprise. The inception and development of this art
faience of Copenhagen is due to Mr. Frederik Dalgas, who brought a keen
and virile intuition into this new field of ceramic adventure. Whereas
in the porcelain there is delicate artistry and finesse, in the faience
there is breadth and vivacity of colour schemes. Never do the twain
touch each other in kinship. The faience is not a poor kinsman of the
porcelain. It is a new creation, a fresh and forceful note in ceramic
art. It has a relationship with bygone majolica of another land. It is
a transplantation of a southern stock into a northern clime. One is
reminded of those labels at Kew Gardens indicating that certain rare
trees from sunnier lands have been acclimatized and have become beauty
spots in a far country.

=The Slow Growth of a New Art.=--It is always interesting to the
student to examine specimens belonging to the experimental stage of
an art. It is here that the potter struggling with his new technique
betrays in his _motifs_ suggestions as to its origin. There are very
few wares in ceramic art that stand out as supremely original. In some
way or another they bear relationship to earlier potters' work, as a
rule. Whole schools of artistic potters have been avowedly copyist.
This is a truism in regard to European ceramic art as a whole: it
is admittedly derivative from Oriental prototypes. But in regard to
various branches of pottery apart from porcelain, there is little doubt
that it has a long lineage. It is therefore possible to compare the
stages of evolution of faience in the Western countries and to realize
that since Greek and Roman and Etruscan days man was a progressive
potter, though even in this field derivative technique came from east
of Suez. The earliest examples of the Copenhagen faience suggest that
the old Italian majolica models had lingered in the memory of the
potters making their essay into a new domain. Those who have carefully
watched the slow but sure growth of this art faience of Copenhagen will
have come to realize how surely the potter has put his foot on a new
plane and established something that is characteristic and original. He
has by a gradual process year by year added new forms, created dishes
and beakers of sound design, and perfected the decorations in colour
till they have reached something which is gay without being garish
and exuberant in rich colouring without being other than surprisingly
harmonious. One wonders how the Oriental rug-weaver can place his blues
and his reds seemingly so disastrous to tone effect. But there they
are, and, either by strong contrast or perfect harmony, the results
are artistically true. It is the same question one asks of the colour
effects in the Copenhagen art faience. They are perfectly luscious
and strikingly original. No one else has employed these combinations
of pigments, nor their wide range of colours. They appear to have
been produced by magic. But to any one with a working knowledge of
a great factory will come the reflection that the apparent magic is
the wizardry of genius, and genius has been defined as the infinite
capacity for taking pains. The strenuous work, the long vigils, the
indefatigable and indomitable determination to accomplish the mastery
of the technique is here evident. It is the strong and fruitful harvest
of a slow growth carefully tended in an especially artistic environment
by trained minds.

[Illustration: COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE.

Vase, decorated with sprays of flowers in rich colours.]

=The Old Masters of Majolica.=--The Italian school with its glazed
ware of polychrome decorative effects, Faenza, Caffaggiolo, Urbino,
Pesarro, and later its lustre (notably the ruby ware of Gubbio), was
partially derivative from Persian and from Hispano-Moresque prototypes.
Figure subjects form an important feature. Groups in contemporary
costume, portraits, and religious or allegorical subjects, as well as
heraldic devices, occupy the centre of the dish. But the border is a
framework which is richly decorated with brilliant and varied colours.
The designs are conceived in the best vein of sixteenth-century
fecundity of invention. Elaborate floriate ornament is in combination
with satyrs and grotesque masks, or cupids, or birds, or sea monsters.
It suggests the sprightly grace which enlivens the tail-pieces engraved
in contemporary Italian books. Design, till it ran riot later, was
exuberant, and there seemed no end to the outburst of originality and
imagination.

It is to these old masters, particularly of the Italian period from
about 1480 to about 1580, that one turns for great ideas and perfect
execution. Before the latter date signs were evident that the art was
declining: already the secret of the Gubbio ruby lustre had been lost.

The earlier Persian pottery and the Rhodian ware, produced as
far afield as Damascus and Ispahan, had disseminated the wondrous
technique of the East. The Hispano-Moresque ware of Malaga and
Valencia, a century earlier than the greatest period of the Italian
school, gradually lost its Moorish character with arabesque design and
pseudo-Arabic characters, till, in the late sixteenth century, designs
in contemporary Spanish costume and broad floriate borders found
favour. The copper lustre was, however, still a feature.

[Illustration: COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE.

Vase with hexagonal top and base, richly decorated with flowers and
arabesque ornament, by Christian Joachim.]

It is obvious, therefore, that the old masters are the fount from
which so much has been derived. Nevers, Rouen, and Moustiers caught
the colour-schemes of Persia and Italy, and each in turn made them her
own. In studying the finest work of the old masters of faience we see
that the technique is something very different from what Staffordshire
has made it. John Dwight in the seventeenth, and Thomas Whieldon in the
eighteenth century both worked on sound lines. It is not high art to
attempt to make faience simulate porcelain, any more than it is when
wall paper pretends to be marble, or leather, or tapestry. Porcelain
shows as much of its white body and sparkling glaze as is possible.
It depends, as does an etching, on its uncovered background for its
luminous effects and its atmosphere. Faience is like an oil painting:
it demands that the whole surface be covered. It has a yellow, or
brown, or green, or lilac ground. The decoration, in contradistinction
to porcelain, is broad and strong. There are no finicking "Chantilly
sprigs" in faience. Bold, virile, and striking must be the notes
that dominate faience, but withal--and herein lies the supremest
difficulty--it must be naïve and simple. It must not suggest the
palace, and certainly not the boudoir. It must bespeak the open air.
It is the perennial herbaceous border in ceramic art, and not the
hot-house or the conservatory.

=The Great Promise of a New School.=--Lovers of Copenhagen ware and
connoisseurs who were aware of the possibilities of faience produced
under rightly understood principles have not been disappointed in
the art faience which Mr. Christian Joachim has made his own under a
group of trained artist potters. His is the guerdon of praise, and the
laurel wreath should be placed on his head for his services to the
art of his native country. He has happily received the support of a
farseeing directorate. His life record will stand as a great triumph
for the Copenhagen art faience. What Arnold Krog has done in porcelain,
Christian Joachim has done in faience. With a fine appreciation of
the limitations of his technique, and with a bold imagination as to
further possibilities in modern conditions, he has sent forth his
pottery with a message of gaiety and youth. No man is a prophet in his
own country. But in Europe and in America Christian Joachim's work has
become noteworthy. Danes the world over buy it because it is Danish. We
English and other strangers buy it because it is beautiful art.

[Illustration: COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE.

Figures. _A Midsummer Night's Dream._ Modelled by R. Harboe.

  Bottom the Weaver.      Fairy.      Philostrate, Master of the Revels.]

In an examination of the art tendencies of the new school, it would
appear that in the attempt to be surprisingly original there is the
wilful abandonment of anything suggestive of Persian, or Rhodian, or
Moorish, or Italian ideals. The _motifs_ are especially modern, and the
schemes of colour are skilfully handled in a novel manner, and owing
to scientific development the potter's palette is more extensive than
heretofore. The promise has already been fulfilled, and connoisseurs
await later developments with no little curiosity.

=The Rich Output of Colour and Inventive Form.=--The illustrations to
this chapter lack colour, and therefore they cannot do justice to what
is one of the most important features in the new art faience. Among
the pigments that are used are the following, no incomplete range in
comparison with what has gone before in this ceramic field. The Dutch
found blue the least refractory of colours, and adhered largely to its
use till later they employed yellow. Rouen employed yellow and red
and green. But Copenhagen has a palette consisting of cream, yellow,
green, blue, red, lilac, and a warm plum colour or purple. This latter
colour, the product of scientific modernity, is wielded with a sure
hand by Christian Joachim and his school of artists. It is in such
examples as the dish and the placque with tropical birds (illustrated,
pp. 307, 311) that the rich colour effects procurable are seen at their
best. In the placque extreme simplicity and artlessness of design is
exhibited in the floral border. In the dish the border is luxuriant
with colour, although broad in treatment. Such examples are extremely
decorative, and exhibit this branch of ceramic art on a high level.
They attain their excellence by methods of their own. They cannot be
confounded with the productions of any other factory, either older or
contemporary. Their originality is a factor not to be eliminated in
adjudging them.

In vases and other vessels demanding attention to form there is
apparent the striving, natural in all potters, for unique forms. A
fine vase with rich floral decoration (illustrated, p. 315) follows
the early Italian drug pot. Another breaks new ground, and its square
hexagonal surfaces require a touch of geometric ornament, rarely found
in Copenhagen faience (illustrated, p. 319). Punch-bowls with covers,
having as a knob a full-sized lemon in natural colours, are novel and
utilitarian. The modelling of Mr. Harboe and of Mr. Slott-Möller is
deserving of recognition. _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ was performed
some years ago in the open air in a glade in the Deerhavn, near
Copenhagen, before some thousands of people. It is natural, therefore,
to find little faience figures of Bottom the Weaver, of Flute the
Bellows-mender, and of Philostrate the Master of the Revels, of Puck,
of Oberon and of Titania, and of delightful fairies. These are not
conjured up from the German translation by Schlegel of Shakespeare's
plays, but from Shakespeare's own imaginings, minus the addition of the
heavy hand of German _Kultur_. We do not remember that Staffordshire
has attempted to reproduce Shakespearean characters in clay, though at
one time, after Wedgwood, Jupiter and Venus and other alien gods and
goddesses were found on every cottager's mantelshelf. The Copenhagen
figures of _Clown_, _Columbine_, and _Harlequin_ are pleasing in their
graceful simplicity (illustrated, p. 327).

[Illustration: COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE.

Figures--Clown, Columbine, and Harlequin--by Christian Joachim.]

Boxes--_bonbonnières_ as the French term them--are produced in great
variety. We reproduce two, broadly decorated and having covers with
original design of bird and wood sprite. This latter follows the true
canons of plastic art. He is as rotund, with no breakable projections,
as a Japanese ivory button _netsuke_. With them is illustrated a vase
Persian in character, but with modern colour effects. All this is
excellent, but one asks for more. In wishing the new school of the
North _bon voyage_, we may be allowed to express a hope that it will
continue its outburst of resplendent colour and perpetuate its virile
design, that it may worthily vie with the great masters of faience in
the South and in the East. In regard to personal inclinations, the
writer would like to see sometimes embodied in the decorative borders
of placques and vases the interlaced work of Runic design, symbolic of
the Norse mystery and magic. If the Italian saints find place on the
_tazzas_ of Faenza, surely Thor and Wodin, who gave their names to two
days of the week, and other heroes of Northern mythology, should be
embodied in this Copenhagen gallery. The triumphs of the Vikings and
their sagas quicken the imagination. Of heroes of later date, one could
wish to see Cnut at the English seashore, or the rugged portrait of old
Christian IV.

It may be that these vain cravings for pages from the past run not
attune to the dreams of the master potter with an eye to the future;
possibly decorative technique forbids--but here are the stray lines of
a foreign spectator in kindly spirit.

[Illustration]

The ware is marked in green with an italic _A_ to signify its origin
from the parent Aluminia factory as early as 1863, and to this are
added the three lines so well known as a Royal Copenhagen Porcelain
mark.

[Illustration: COPENHAGEN ART FAIENCE.

Vase and Boxes with lids surmounted by wood sprite and by bird,
richly decorated in colours. By H. Slott-Möller and Christian Joachim.]




CHAPTER XII

THE FACTORY TO-DAY




CHAPTER XII

THE FACTORY TO-DAY

  Its situation and surroundings--Facilities for the study of plant,
      flower, and animal life--Modern equipment in machinery and
      in hygienic improvements--The absence of lead poisoning--New
      impulses.


In the word _factory_ there is nothing suggestive of poetry. In England
it represents the Frankenstein who has slain many cottage industries.
In connection with our own potteries there are the Five Towns, merged
into one, with a quarter of a million of inhabitants. They stand for
organized science and applied manufacture. Their architecture is an
architecture of chimney-shafts and kilns, black with smoke. It is a
prosperous district, crammed with the workers in a gigantic industry.
There are visions of murky canals and great hills of accumulated rubble
of the mines, coal and copper and iron, dug from the bowels of the
earth and blotting out the skyline.

There are crowded byways filled with hurrying operatives, men and
women and girls. The beauty of the rich, green, undulating lands of
Staffordshire has been effaced by this delving of human moles. It is as
though some ruthless giant had made sport of the hills and worked havoc
on a smiling plain. But modern life demands sacrifices, and chinaware
must be made to send to the four corners of the earth--this is the
great White Country.

In Denmark things are managed differently. It comes as a welcome
surprise to the English visitor, educated to other scenes, to find the
Royal Porcelain Factory set in a pleasant suburb of the city near the
old gardens of the Palace of Frederiksberg. One cannot have an omelette
without breaking eggs: the factory chimneys are there, the green-hedged
paths are surely a snare leading up to another such prison-house as
are all factories the world over. Here are the heaps of quartz, and
we catch the hum of the machinery. The workers are in the hive; some
unkind sprite has snatched them from the pleasant ways of a delightful
city set by the sea and immured them for their sins in this fortress of
stone.

[Illustration: COURTYARD OF ROYAL COPENHAGEN FACTORY.

Showing turkey and brood.]

It suggests the story of Böttger and his workmen imprisoned by
reason of the secrets they held. Surely these workmen and artists who
know the secret of the Copenhagen ware will not be allowed to escape.
It is too precious a thing to Denmark that its secrets be divulged. But
the reply comes suddenly when the doors are opened and the secret, that
is no secret, is disclosed. These men and women are Danes, and proud
of their art and filled with the love of their Copenhagen porcelain.
They come and go as they will. Like bees they roam over the flowers and
the gems of nature, and they return home to the hive because they love
their art. That which their hand findeth to do, they do with all their
might.

=Facility for Study of Animal and Plant Life.=--There is sunshine here
in this Northern pottery. The courtyard shows a scene no other factory
in the world can offer; it is bewildering to a student of potteries:
a turkey with her brood proudly dominates the scene. We have with the
camera caught this as a record. It is as suggestive as it is remarkable
that the artists have carried their love for fidelity so far that
flowers and animals and birds find themselves in suitable environment
at this strange enchanted factory.

Animal life is dear to the potters here. There are over three hundred
moulds of different types--wading and diving wild fowl from the remoter
"haunts of coot and hern"; sea-gulls, never absent from the harbour
and canals spanned by bridges over which trams pass; bears and seals,
the originals of which are to be found at the Zoological Gardens
close by; and if the Phœnix--that fabulous bird which lives for five
hundred years, making its nest of spices and burning itself to ashes,
coming forth with renewed life for another five hundred years--could
be captured, it would find a place in the aviary of the factory which,
Phœnix-like, has arisen with youth and vigour.

=The Absence of Lead Poisoning.=--In place of the white-faced factory
workers, we find at the Copenhagen factory a healthy band of workmen,
artisans, and artists, employed in conditions that are a credit to all
concerned. The usual drudgery of a pottery is eliminated as much as
possible in this factory. The latest modern appliances to ventilate
the dust-laden air are in use. _There are no cases of lead-poisoning,
because lead is not used in the factory either in pigments or in
glazes._ A dining-hall and dressing-rooms have been erected for the
workmen. The factory provides its own electricity and mechanical power;
it is heated throughout by hot water, and has a complete system of
vacuum and pressure mains.

The lady artists work in almost ideal conditions. They are installed
in studios filled with flowers and plants, and in no other factory are
the artistic conditions so favourable to the study of plant and animal
life. The photographs we reproduce are taken of the normal surroundings
of everyday work.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF ROYAL COPENHAGEN PORCELAIN FACTORY.

Showing studios of lady artists.]

The writer has indelible memory pictures of the workmen at the
machinery, or in the open air turning over the quartz where it lies
in heaps "weathering," exposed to the sun and the frost, of slowly
grinding stones revolving in a vat mixing and amalgamating the raw
materials, in preparing them for the next stage of handling, revealing
the slow and patient processes of the potter's art. There is something
hazardous in manipulating the raw materials, crushing them into powder,
and bringing them together in the correct proportions for the body.
It is here that the long traditions of the factory, the well-guarded
secrets in the mixing, and the skilful instinct in conjunction with
scientific exactitude, come into full operation. The result is evident
in the smooth, white, pearly body and the transparent liquid glaze, so
technically perfect and so much admired by other potters.

One recalls an anxious and expectant group at the ovens when a firing
is being removed after the ovens have cooled down from the intense heat
of the _grand feu_, a temperature never attempted by the manufacturers
of soft-paste porcelain in this country.

The laboratory holds mysteries of its own. It is an inner sanctum to
which few penetrate. These little human touches indicate that there
is a romance in manufacture as well as in more stirring scenes to the
accompaniment of the roll of the drum or the rousing bugle-call. The
potter's art is rich in associations which render the arts of peace as
alluring in story as the arts of war. Many victories have been won in
silence, but no less triumphant for that, and these represent man's
conquest of earth and the white-hot flame of the furnace, whereby he
transmutes the rocks from the quarry and the mountain-side into crystal
vases reflecting those same mountains, and streams, and placid lakes,
and clouds in stately procession. This is the art of the magician, and
modern science has added one more laurel wreath to her victories over
the elements.

The interior of a great factory where art is in the making has many
exciting moments. The cruel fire is no respecter of persons. After the
various steps have been taken, the grinding, the mixing, the moulding
into form, the firing in biscuit, the painting, and the subsequent
glazing, the creation comes out of the oven as a finished work of art.
At any one of these stages a slip may mean disaster. Each successive
process gains in difficulty. It is a tragic instant when the last hour
is reached. After the oven has cooled the news goes round that a firing
is being taken from the kiln. A knot of artists gathers round as each
piece comes out. Some call for admiration; there is a hush of joyful
surprise when a completed masterpiece comes forth perfect. Alas! too
often some delightful dream with its tender colours has twisted out
of shape in the intense heat. A graceful form has coalesced with a
neighbouring vase. They stand as failures, and the workman with swift,
relentless hand gives them a tap with a hammer, and they become shards.
The poet-painter's dream has ended in nothingness.

=New Impulses.=--In regard to the future there are golden hopes
and happy anticipations. The past has been glorious, the present is
triumphant. A true and living school of design amid sound artistic
environment has its band of artist-potters, trained under happy
auspices, whose aims are set steadfastly on art that is nothing unless
it be national--these are the children of to-morrow. New generations
will come and go, and new art impulses will beat, as the waves breaking
from the Baltic, on the little pottery set on a rock and proud in its
great achievements. The future, like the vessel in the furnace, is in
the hands of Fate. Taking courage in both hands, the potter-sons of
Denmark will in those yet unborn days carry on the great traditions.
There is a great heritage for the sons of the days to come, and looking
backward, they will place the laurel wreath on the brow of the masters
who, in the old days and at the present era, have fought the good fight
and won the guerdon of praise from potters in far-off lands who have
paid homage to the art of the Three Blue Lines.

[Illustration]


  FINIS




INDEX




INDEX


  A as a mark, Copenhagen faience, 330

  Abildgaard, 107

  A.H. as a mark, 102

  Aluminia Company buys factory (in 1883), 205

  Aluminia mark on Art faience, 330

  Andersen, Hans, _Princess and Swineherd_, _Tinder Box_,
      figures illustrating, 269, 284

  Animal life, study of, at Copenhagen, 270, 339

  Antonibon, Pasqual, potter at Venice, 24

  Arentz, Johan, 109

  Arnoux, Report on Pottery at Paris Exhibition (1867), 24

  Art Faience, Copenhagen, 307-330


  B and G (as a mark), 283

  Bargains in porcelain, a regiment of dragoons exchanged for
      collection of porcelain, 32

  Battle of Copenhagen, 179
    Bowl commemorating, 184

  Bau, N., 109

  Baÿer, J. C., the painter of the _Flora Danica_ service, 105
    Signature of, 103

  Berlin factory founded by Frederick the Great, 32

  Bing, M., collection of Oriental art at Paris, 215

  Bing and Gröndahl, Messrs., the factory of, at Copenhagen, 283

  Bird life, strongly represented in figures and painted work, 270, 339

  Biscuit figures, a high test of ceramic art, 266

  Biscuit figures of great size (Sèvres porcelain) (1900), 224

  Blue-and-white, early, underglaze painted, 157-76
    Painters of, 104, 110
    Table of marks, 174-6

  Boisgelin, Count Louis de, visits Copenhagen factory (1790), 76, 109
    his report quoted, 76-84, 150, 151

  Bornholm clay used at early period, 63, 78, 165

  Botanical character of Copenhagen, decoration in _Flora Danica_
      service, 148

  Böttger, Johann Fredrich, his discovery of hard porcelain, 22, 29
    his secret divulged throughout Europe, 30, 35

  Bowl in memory of Battle of Copenhagen, 184

  Brandstrup, gilding by, 195

  Brongniart discontinues making _pâte tendre_ at Sèvres, 24

  Bushell, Stephen W., "Chinese Art," quoted, 23


  C7 (incised) as a mark, illustrated, 104

  Cadewitz, Martin, 107

  Camrath, Johan, junior, 110
    senior, 108

  Caroline Matilda (Queen of Denmark), her tragic history, 47

  Catherine II, Empress of Russia; her friendship with contemporary
      philosophers and scientists, 142
    Establishes a French theatre at St. Petersburg, 142
    Letter of Voltaire to, 143
    Great services made for--
      _Flora Danica_, 139
      Sèvres, 139
      Wedgwood, 140

  Characteristics of modern Copenhagen porcelain, 230, 233

  Charles XV of Sweden, present of Fournier Copenhagen service to, 39

  Child-life a feature in Copenhagen modelling, 274

  "Chinese Art," by Stephen W. Bushell, quoted, 23

  Chinese conventional underglaze blue-painted types, 233, 238
    Crackled glazes, 292
    _Flambé_ glazes, 291
    Influence on Copenhagen at the outset of the modern period, 211
    Potter, the poetry of the, 95, 245
    Prototypes in underglaze painted porcelain, 233
    Subjects at Copenhagen, rare, 125

  _Christian VII_ (of Denmark), the court of, 43-52

  Chronology (Queen Juliane Marie period) (1732-1780), 42

  Chronology (1780-1820), 74

  Classic movement the, in Europe, 191

  Classic ornament, avoidance of, in modern Copenhagen porcelain, 234
    used in Copenhagen decadent period, 196

  Clement, chemist at Copenhagen factory, produces first crystalline
      glaze in 1886, 219

  Clio, Hans, signature of, 101, 106

  Colour, combinations of rich, in Copenhagen art faience, 325

  Colours of underglaze painting, their limitation, 236, 268

  Colours invented by Müller, 64, 78

  Commemorative placques, 230, 243

  Commonplace development of underglaze painting avoided at
      Copenhagen, 234

  Contemporary criticism of Copenhagen factory (1790), quoted, 76

  Copenhagen Art Faience, 309-31

  Copenhagen factory compared with Meissen, 77-80, 126

  Copenhagen Factory Mark, its origin and symbolic meaning, 56

  Copenhagen porcelain, early (soft-paste), 37

  Copenhagen porcelain, characteristics of modern style, 230, 233

  Copyists of modern Copenhagen porcelain, 229, 295

  Costume subjects, weakness of, in china, 266

  Costume subjects, respective claims of overglaze and underglaze
      painting, 268

  Costume subjects. Meissen vitiates Europe, 126

  Costume subjects in Meissen and Chelsea manner avoided at
      Copenhagen, 126, 129, 277

  Court scandal. _Coup d'état_ of Crown Prince Frederik, 48

  Court scandal. The story of Queen Caroline Matilda, 47

  Crackled glazes, 292, 301

  Crown, use of, as a mark, 262

  Crystalline glazes, 289-303

  Crystalline glazes invented by Hr. Clement in 1886, the chemist at
      the Copenhagen factory, 219


  Dalgas, Frederik, his activity in upholding the traditions of the
      factory, 313
    his development of the Art Faience, 313

  Dannemand, Countess, presents a service of Copenhagen porcelain to
      Charles XV of Sweden, 39

  Danish and Japanese ceramic art compared, 247

  Danish heroes of the Battle of Copenhagen, 184

  "Danish" pattern, the, in blue and white, 159
    Dish, illustrated, 169
    Plate, illustrated, 249

  Decadence, the, at Copenhagen factory (1820-1880), 177-97

  Decoration, fitting, a true test of high ceramic art, 238

  Defects in firing in porcelain corrected by the painter, 265

  Delft and its origin, 309

  Denmark the arena of European conflicts, art impulses extinguished, 179

  Denmark, the first porcelain made in, 35

  Derby porcelain peacock compared with Copenhagen model, 288

  Diderot and Catherine II of Russia, 142

  Diversity of designs, Müller period, 81

  Dutch potters' imitation of Chinese porcelain, 309


  Eckersberg, Danish painter, 197

  Eighteenth century, outburst of enthusiasm for art of potter, 28

  Empire style, the so-called, 191

  _Encyclopædia Britannica_ (1911), article on _Ceramics_
      (_re_ Copenhagen) quoted, 282

  Engelhardt, Hr. V., chemist at Copenhagen factory, his crystalline
      glazes, 223, 296

  English factories, soft-paste, list of, 27
    Hard paste, 27

  English factories, slavish imitation of Oriental models and
      marks, 11, 281
    The short duration of the old, 202

  English factories, soft paste mainly produced at, 27

  English porcelain, its peculiar technique, 310

  English potters, clever technique of, 27

  Europe, establishment of china factories in, 21
    Secret of hard paste discovered, 29

  European ceramic art, a new note added by Copenhagen, 216

  European factories, hard-paste, origin of, 30


  F painted in forget-me-nots, 99

  F5, mark Fournier period, 36

  Factory marks, European, with royal and patrician cyphers, 28

  Factory Mark, not used from 1773-1775 at Copenhagen, 42, 56

  Factory Mark (Copenhagen), origin and meaning of the three blue
      lines, 56

  Factory, the old, closed down for want of fuel, 135

  Factory, the Royal Copenhagen, to-day, 333-45
    Art Faience and its future, 330
    Dalgas, Frederik, the modern spirit of, the artistic distinction
      achieved under his direction, 313
    Facilities for study of plant and animal life, 339
    Its artistic environment, 339
    Its modern equipment, its hygienic improvements, 340
    The studios (illustrated), 341

  Faience, Copenhagen Art, 309-31

  Faience, its technique, 321

  Falck, A., buys factory in 1867, 196

  Figure Subjects, early production of, at Copenhagen, 71
    National character of, 126, 274

  Figure Subjects and Groups (1780-1820), 111-36
    Classification of, 122
    Renaissance period, 263-88

  Figure Subjects, Thorvaldsen period, 196

  Fischer, Admiral, bowl in memory of, 184

  Fish modelled from nature, 273

  _Flambé_ glazes of Chinese potters, 291

  _Flora Danica_ service, the, 137-56
    Painters and modellers of, 105, 106, 108, 144, 155, 156

  _Flora Russica_, by Dr. P. S. Pallas, German naturalist, 153

  Florence, imitative porcelain made at, 23

  Foreign porcelain prohibited in Denmark, 114

  Foreign workmen and artists at Copenhagen--
    Baÿer, 83
    Cadewitz, 83
    from Meissen, 59
    Luplau, 60, 83, 121, 122
    Thomaschefsky, 83

  Form _versus_ Colour, 265, 266

  Formal landscape, the, supplanted by modern Copenhagen, 234

  Fortia, de, Count Alphonse, his volume, 76

  Fournier, Louis, French potter at Copenhagen, 36

  Fournier, Louis, and his period (1760-1766), 35-9
    Mark used by, 36

  Frederick the Great carries off Meissen workmen to Berlin, 32

  Frederick the Great founds the Berlin factory, 32
    his ruse to stimulate interest in porcelain, 32

  Frederik V of Denmark, Sèvres service a present from Louis XV, 38

  Frederik V establishes a factory at Copenhagen, 35

  Frederik VI, his early training, 141
    Orders the _Flora Danica_ to be made, 140

  Frederiksborg Castle, vases at, 125

  Fürstenberg, artist from, at Copenhagen, 71

  Fürstenberg, mark of, mistaken for early Copenhagen porcelain, 36

  Future triumphs, the supernatural yet unplumbed, 253


  Garmein, painter (1820-1825), 195

  Garnier, M. Edouard (of Sèvres Museum), quoted, 220, 223

  Genius independent of modern science, 67, 91

  George III demands release of his sister on pain of war being
      declared, 51

  Gilding of exquisite quality at Copenhagen, 91

  Ginger jar, the Chinese, of commerce, its beauty, 237

  Glaze--
    Overglaze decoration, 233
    Underglaze decoration, 214, 224, 236, 268

  Glazes--
    Chinese crackled, 292
    Chinese _flambé_, 291
    Crystalline (Copenhagen), 295
    Transmutation, 291, 301

  Gray, Thomas, student of nature, 153
    The first note of love of nature in English literature in his
      "Letters," 153

  Grimm and Catherine II of Russia, 142

  Gubbio, ruby lustre glaze of, 318


  Hald, Andreas, 109
    Signature of, 102

  Hamilton, Lady, Nelson's letters to, 187

  _Hamlet_, quoted, 192

  Hansen, Lars, painter, 106

  Hard paste--
    first made at Meissen, 22, 29
    Plymouth, Bristol, and New Hall, 27
    Sèvres, manufacture of, at, 24

  Heraldic placques designed by Arnold Krog, 230, 243

  Hetch, G., Director of Copenhagen factory, 191

  Highest work of Copenhagen, an attempt to indicate, 230, 233

  Hispano-Moresque ware, 318

  HM (incised) as a mark, illustrated, 104

  Holm (Privy Chancellor to Queen Juliane Marie), encourages Müller, 55

  Holm (potter), signature of, 103

  Holmskjold, the botanist, director of Copenhagen factory, 144

  Höyen, his lecture on the natural Scandinavian art, 196


  I as a mark, 195

  I. Holm, 103, 107

  Imitativeness of European potters, 11, 215, 281, 309, 314

  Imitators of modern Copenhagen porcelain, 229, 281

  Initials on Copenhagen porcelain (F), 99

  Inscription on Chinese vase, 95
    Copenhagen (bowl), 184
      (cup), 69, 99
      (plate), 87
      (cup and saucer), 99
    Staffordshire pottery, 96

  Italian Majolica, old masters of, 317


  J (mark of Jensen), 195

  Jacobsen, quoted, 251

  Japanese and Danish ceramic art compared, 247

  Japanese imitations of Copenhagen porcelain, 247, 281

  Japanese influence in Copenhagen at outset of modern period, 235

  Japanese ivory carver, his technique, 267, 329

  Jensen, mark of, 195

  Jews compelled by Frederick the Great to buy porcelain, 32

  Joachim, Christian, his art faience, 322, 325

  JS (incised) as a mark, 103

  Juliane Marie, Dowager Queen, patron of Müller, 55
    Part of, in overthrow of Struensee, 48

  Juliane Marie porcelain period--
    Part I (1775-1780), 41-71
    Part II (1780-1796), 73-110
    Excellence of modelling an ideal for modern work, 268

  Juliane Marie style revived, 233


  K (incised) as a mark, 175

  Kalleberg, G., the designer of fine subjects, 107, 118

  Kändler of Meissen and his style, 126

  _Kaolin_, definition of, 22

  Keith, Sir Robert Murray, British Minister at Copenhagen, 51

  Krog, Arnold, Art Director at Royal Copenhagen Factory (from 1885), 210
    his artistic impulses, 213
    his development of new style in underglaze painting, 214
    Traditional ornament discarded, 234
    Nature, the source of inspiration, 215
    Signatures of, 255

  Kronborg, Castle of, painted on a cup, 192

  Kroyer, Danish painter, 197


  L as a mark (incised), 175
    (painted), 195

  Landscape subjects painted in underglaze colours, 237

  Lead glaze not used at Copenhagen, 340

  Lead-poisoning, no cases at Copenhagen, 340

  Lehmann, Peter Heinrich Benjamin,107
    Signature of, 101

  Living schools of decorative art, 345

  Lost arts, the technique of genius, 91

  Louis XV sends a Sèvres service to Frederik V of Denmark, 38

  Ludwigsberg factory, 31

  Lunbye, Johan Thomas, Danish painter, 197

  Luplau, comes to Copenhagen from Fürstenberg factory, 71, 105
    his limitations, 117
    Signature of, 101

  Lyngbe, L., mark of, 195


  M (incised) as a mark, 104

  Madsen, Professor Karl, quoted, 105

  Majolica, old masters of, 317

  Mark not used at Copenhagen (1773-1775), 104

  Marks (continental) with royal and patrician cyphers, 28
    (Copenhagen) art faience, 330
    Early blue-and-white porcelain, 174-6
    Fournier period (illustrated), 36
    Müller period (1775-1801), 100-4
    Peculiarities in position of (blue-and-white porcelain), 171
    Renaissance period, used by leading painters and modellers
      (from 1885), 255-62
    Similarity between early Copenhagen and Fürstenberg, 36
    Three blue lines, origin of the, 56
    (English) imitation of Oriental, Sèvres, and Meissen, 11, 281

  Mason's ironstone china, 310

  Meehl, Hans, mark of, 104

  Meissen--
    Establishment of factory at, 29
    Figure subjects of, compared with Copenhagen, 77, 126
    Marks copied by English potters, 11, 281
    Porcelain, authoritative history of, 29
    Secret of, divulged and spread throughout Europe, 30
    Workmen and materials carried off by Frederick the Great to Berlin, 32
    Workmen at Copenhagen, 59

  Mehlhorn, a potter from Saxony, comes to Copenhagen, 36

  Meyer, Elias, 109
    Panel painted by, 97

  Meyer, M., 109

  MII (incised) as a mark, 174

  ML (incised) as a mark, 174

  Modellers and painters, Müller period (1773-1801), list of, 105-10

  Modellers' and Painters' Marks (early blue-and-white), 174-6
    (Renaissance period), 255-62

  Modern ephemeral art movements unheeded at Copenhagen, 248

  Modern equipment of Copenhagen factory, 340

  Modern Renaissance at Copenhagen--
    Crystalline glazes, 289-303
    Early days, 201-19
    Figure subjects, 263-88
    Golden period, 219-54

  Moltke, Count, of Bregentved, Fournier porcelain in collection of
      (illustrated), 33

  Moore, Mr. Bernard, his examples of glazing, 292

  Moorish potters, arabesque designs of, 318

  Müller, Frantz Heinrich (1773-1801)--
    Discontent and misery contemporary with establishment of his
      factory, 39, 48
    his secret mission to other factories, 52, 84
    Portrait of, 41
    Range of his subjects and order of their production, 68
    Recognition of, in his lifetime, 64
    Scurvy treatment of, at factory, 80, 83
    Statue of him that was never erected, 64
    Successors of (1820-1880), 177-97
    Technique of, 63, 64

  Müller period, the, culminating point of, 71

  Mussel-blue painted, the great service, 172

  Mussel-blue painted, underglaze, the suggestive idea of modern
      developments, 234


  Napoleonic wars, 202

  National character of early Copenhagen porcelain, 130
    of Japanese ceramic art, 247

  National Museum (Stockholm), Copenhagen porcelain at, 38, 69, 115, 119

  National sentiment in Müller's designs, 95
    in modern Copenhagen porcelain, 235, 246

  National style created at Copenhagen, 84

  Nature, Danish, reflected in modern Copenhagen porcelain, 252, 253, 339

  Nature-study a dominant note at Copenhagen, 150, 339

  Nelson, Admiral Lord--
    Letters to Lady Hamilton, 187
    sends Copenhagen porcelain to Lady Hamilton, 188

  Nicolaj, Christian Faxoe, 108

  Numerals (1-7), painters' marks on early blue-and-white, 176

  Nymphenberg factory, 30


  Oeder, the originator of the _Flora Danica_, 149

  Old Copenhagen Factory described by contemporary eye-witnesses
      (1790), 76-84, 154

  Omar Khayyám, quoted, 96

  Ondrup (1779-1787), signature of, 102

  Oriental prototypes of European porcelain, 215, 237, 281, 309

  Originality at Copenhagen factory, its avoidance of ephemeral art
      movements, 248
    of stereotyped styles, 234

  Outburst of activity in 1780, 75, 113

  Overglaze decoration, modern revival of old Copenhagen forms, 229

  Overglaze painters, Müller period, 105-10


  Painters, Müller period (1773-1818), list of, 105-10

  Painters' and Modellers' Marks (early blue-and-white), 174-6

  Painters, underglaze, early blue-and-white, 106, 110

  Pallas, Dr. P. S., the _protégé_ of Catherine II of Russia, 153

  Paris Exhibition (1889), success of Copenhagen porcelain at, 220
    (1900), 223

  _Pâte dure_ porcelain of Meissen and allied schools, 22

  _Pâte tendre_ porcelain of Sèvres and allied schools, 22, 24

  Peasant life a feature in Copenhagen figures, 273

  Peasant types and contemporary character in figure subjects, 130, 273

  Peacock, figure of (Copenhagen), compared with Derby porcelain
      model, 287

  Peculiarities in marks (blue-and-white), 171

  Persian pottery, 318, 321

  _Petuntse_, definition of, 22

  Placques, heraldic commemorative, 230, 243

  Poetry and imagination, expression of, in modern Copenhagen work, 246

  Poetry of the potter's art, the, 95, 245

  Porcelain--
    First made in Europe (Böttger), 22, 29
    in Denmark, 34
    Hard-paste, schools of, 21
    Semi-porcelain, a term in English ceramics, 310
    Soft-paste, schools of, 21

  Portraits--
    Frederik, Crown Prince (vase), 49
    Juliane Marie, Queen Dowager (vase), 45
    Müller, Frantz Heinrich, 41
      (cup), 69
    Rabener, 92

  Pott, chemist at Berlin factory, 31

  Potter, Chinese, the poetic terms of the, 245

  Preus, Sören, modeller of flowers, 108

  Processes at old Copenhagen factory described, 63, 76-80, 91


  Rarity of old porcelain--
    Copenhagen (Fournier period), 36
    Florence (sixteenth century), 23

  Renaissance, modern, Copenhagen, 199-262

  Retail depot opened at Copenhagen, 60, 113

  Revival of overglaze painting, 229

  Rhodian pottery, 322

  Rhymes and mottoes on Copenhagen porcelain, 99
    on Staffordshire pottery, 96

  Ringler, a workman at Vienna, carries the secret of hard paste far
      and wide, 30

  Roscoe and Schorlemmer, _Treatise on Chemistry_, quoted, 31

  Rosenborg Castle--
    _Flora Danica_ service at, 137-56
    Fournier porcelain at (illustrated), 25, 37

  Rousseau, Jean Jacques--
    his influence on Struensee, 47
    his naturalistic theories, 141

  Royal factory established at Copenhagen by Frederik V (1760), 35

  Royal patronage of potters--
    (in general), 28
    (in particular) _Copenhagen_:
      Christian VII, 104
      Frederik V, 35
      Juliane Marie and royal family shareholders in Müller's company, 56
      Crown Prince Frederik and the _Flora Danica_ service, 140
    _Berlin_: Frederick the Great, 32
    _Fürstenberg_: Duke of Brunswick, 31
    _Meissen_: Frederick Augustus, Elector of Saxony, 29
      acquires porcelain in exchange for a regiment of dragoons, 32
    _St. Petersburg_: Emperor Paul, 28
      Empress Catherine II, 31
      Empress Elizabeth Petrowna, 31
    _Vienna_: Empress Maria Theresa, 30


  St. Cloud, factory (1695-1773), 21, 23

  Scandinavian _Diana_ biscuit group in Sèvres porcelain, 224

  Schleswig-Holstein, war concerning the duchies of, fatal to Danish
      art, 205

  Schmidt, Jacob, 102

  Schou, Philip, pioneer of Modernity, 205
    Makes a European tour, visiting factories of Holland, Belgium,
      France, and England, 214
    Rebuilds factory at Frederiksberg--his genius, 205
    The triumph of his foresight, 213
    Copenhagen porcelain raised to a new plane, 216

  Schou, Philip, comparison between, and Müller, 210

  Schreiber, Lady Charlotte, letter from Francesco Antonibon to, 24

  Secret of hard-paste porcelain spreads throughout Europe, 30

  Secrets of craftsmen not dependent on scientific accuracy, 67

  Semi-porcelain peculiarly English, 310

  Sèvres, crystalline glazes at, 301

  Sèvres factory, date when hard paste first made at, 24

  Sèvres factory, marks of, copied by English potters, 11, 281

  Sèvres porcelain, its spirit reflecting northern ideas, 224

  Sèvres porcelain, Louis XV
    sends present of service to King of Denmark, 38
    Service made for Catherine II of Russia, 139

  Sèvres styles introduced at Copenhagen, 37

  Shakesperean subjects (Copenhagen), 326

  Signatures of artists, etc., in Copenhagen porcelain--
    Baÿer, 103
    Clio, 101
    Hald, 102
    Holm, 103
    Krog, 255
    Lehmann, 101
    Liisberg, 256
    Luplau, 101
    Meehl, 104
    Ondrup, 102
    Schmidt, 103

  Skovgaad, Peter Christian, Danish painter, 197

  Soft-paste porcelain, definition of, 23
    English, 27
    When made at Copenhagen, 36

  Sören Preus, 108

  Söroe, view of, painted on a cup, 195

  Spiritual outlook, the, of modern Copenhagen, 252

  Staffordshire figures stripped of their pigment, 266

  Staffordshire potters' fondness for rhymes, 96

  Stockholm, National Museum, specimens of porcelain at, 38, 69, 115, 119
    Fournier period, 38
    Juliane Marie period, 69, 119

  Struensee, John Frederick, his fatal influence at the Court of
      Christian VII, 47
    his overthrow by Queen Juliane Marie, 48
    his execution, 51

  Styles which modern Copenhagen wisely avoided, 234

  Subject, the apt choice of a fitting, the truest test of the highest
      ceramic art, 238

  Successors of Müller, 177-97

  Supernatural, the, untouched by Copenhagen, 253


  T (incised) as a mark, 175

  Table of leading painters and modellers, Müller
      period (1773-1810), 105-10

  Table of Marks, Müller period (1775-1810), 100-4

  Table of Marks, old blue-and-white porcelain, 174-6

  Tables of Marks, painters and modellers of Renaissance period
      from 1885, 255-62

  Technique--
    Copenhagen art faience, 317, 325
    Copenhagen porcelain (modern) imitated by many factories, 229, 247
    Copenhagen porcelain (old), processes described, 63, 268
    (Müller period) its triumph with primitive methods and impure
      materials, 67, 88, 91
    English porcelain, 310
    Figure subjects, the limitations of the potter obeyed, 267
    Modelling and its especial, 266, 267
    Modern schools of potters, 229, 247
    Underglaze decorated porcelain, 236, 237
    Underglaze painter, true ideal in, 214, 234, 242

  Thomaschefsky, Carl Fridrich, 110

  Thorvaldsen, figures after sculpture of, 196

  Three blue lines (Copenhagen mark), origin of, 56

  TI (incised) as a mark, 170

  _Times_ (1801), quoted, 183

  Toby jugs stripped of their pigment, 266

  Transmutation glazes, 291, 301

  Tschirnhaus, Ehrenfried Walter von, 29

  Tuscany, Grand Duke of, patron of Florence factory, 23

  Tvede, Claus, modeller, 105


  Underglaze painted, early blue-and-white, 157-76

  Underglaze painting, new technique created, 214, 234, 242

  Underglaze painting succeeds overglaze painting in figure subjects, 268

  Unmarked Copenhagen porcelain (1773-1775), 42, 56


  Verses on Copenhagen porcelain, 87, 99

  Vincennes factory (1740), 23

  Voltaire, letter to Catherine II of Russia, 143


  W2 (incised) as a mark, 176

  Wedgwood exhibition, the, by Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons, London, 1909
      (including service made for Catherine II, Empress of Russia), 140

  Wedgwood, his introduction of classicism into Staffordshire, 192, 278
    his jasper ware, its classification, 310

  Wedgwood service made for Catherine II of Russia, 140

  Wedgwood workmen apply in vain at Copenhagen, 122

  Wiedewelt, the sculptor, assists Fournier, 36

  Wilkins, W. H., _A Queen of Tears_. History of Caroline Matilda,
      Queen of Denmark, 47

  Winther, Christian, quoted, 251

  Worcester, its Oriental prototypes, 215, 237, 281

  Workmen, foreign, at Copenhagen, 59, 60, 83, 121, 122

  Workmen, foreign. English artisans from Wedgwood's factory apply in
      vain at Copenhagen, 122


  Zimmermann, Professor Ernst (Meissen porcelain), 29

  Zurich factory, 31


                  _Printed in Great Britain by_
  UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON




Transcriber's Note:


Unusual and archaic words have been maintained as in the original book.
Words that were in bold in the original book are surrounded by "=",
such as =bold=.

Instances where the List of Illustrations did not match the contents of
the book were corrected:

  Corrected entries for Chapter II:
    Saucer. Eagle and Lamb      57
    Saucer. Water-god      61
  Originally:
    Saucers. Eagle and Lamb; Water-god      61

  Corrected entry for Chapter XI:
    Dish with tropical bird (_Christian Joachim_)      307
  Originally
    Dish with tropical birds (_Christian Joachim_)      307

Instances where the index did not match the contents of the book were
corrected. In all cases, the preferred spelling in the body of the book
was maintained and the index was changed.

  Corrected: Baÿer, J. C., the painter of the _Flora Danica_ service, 105
  Originally: Bayer

  Corrected (under Foreign Workmen...): Thomaschefsky, 83
  Originally: Thomasefsky

  Corrected: Frederiksborg Castle, vases at, 125
  Originally: Fredericksborg

  Corrected: Kändler of Meissen and his style, 126
  Originally: Kandler

  Corrected: Mehlhorn, a potter from Saxony, comes to Copenhagen, 36
  Originally: Melhorn

  Corrected: Ondrup (1779-1787), signature of, 102
  Originally: Ondrop

  Corrected: Schreiber, Lady Charlotte, letter from Francesco Antonibon
    to, 24
  Originally: Antibon

  Corrected: Shakesperean subjects (Copenhagen), 326
  Originally: Shakesperian

  Corrected: Thomaschefsky, Carl Fridrich, 110
  Originally: Freidrich

In researching the letter from Francesco Antonibon to Lady Charlotte
Schreiber (and the correct spelling of "Antonibon"), I found that the
cited work, "Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain" by William
Chaffers does exist, but does not contain the cited information. A
related work by the same author, "Marks and Monograms on European
and Oriental Pottery and Porcelain with Historical Notices of Each
Manufactory" contains the cited information. The citation has not been
changed in the footnote in this ebook (page 24 of the original book).







*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHATS ON ROYAL COPENHAGEN PORCELAIN ***


    

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