PLATE XXXVI. SÈVRES
The free access to the royal factory—the workshops seem to have been regarded at one time as a fashionable lounge—made the preservation of any secret processes very difficult. Bachelier says that ‘on vient s’y promener comme dans les maisons royales,’ and he complains bitterly of the loss of time, the dirt, and the accidents caused by the throng of people. A succession of edicts, one as early as the year 1747, was issued, restricting the access of visitors.
When the difficulties connected with the paste and the decoration had been surmounted, a demand arose for protection against the competition of outside works. With this object a whole series of edicts, many of them of a contradictory nature, was issued between the years 1750 and 1780. Of these the special aim was to prevent or hamper the production of porcelain in other works, above all in those within a certain radius of Paris, or failing that, at least to restrict the use of colour, and especially of gilding, by such works as had to be tolerated.
At the time of the removal to Sèvres the staff consisted of more than a hundred workmen. Duplessis, the silversmith of the king, was intrusted with the modelling and with the general artistic direction, and Hellot, as we have seen, was what we should now call ‘scientific adviser.’187
Bachelier complains that the nature of the paste and glaze was unfavourable to the production of small figures, ‘luisantes et colorées,’ like those of Saxony. He claims to have been the first—this was as early as 1748—to recommend the use of white biscuit to reproduce in porcelain, among other things, ‘some of the pastoral ideas of M. Boucher,’ and this style, he tells us, ‘had a great success up to the time when M. Falconet, to whom the department was intrusted in 1757, introduced a more noble style, one more generalised and less subject to the evolution of fashion.’ Falconet was carried off to Russia in 1766, to execute for Catherine ii. the great statue of Peter the Great, and Bachelier then took his place. It was under Falconet that the best work was produced in this department, although at a later date such well-known names as Robert le Lorrain, Pajou, Clodion, Pigalle, and Houdon are found upon the books of the Sèvres works. No biscuit statuettes of pâte tendre were made after the year 1777.
The models after which the vases and other objects were designed—and each year some fresh form was introduced—are still preserved at Sèvres. We can trace in them, as in the mountings of the contemporary furniture, the passage from the haute rocaille of the fifties to the simpler forms in favour at the beginning of the reign of Louis xvi.
PLATE XXXVII. SÈVRES PORCELAIN
The fashion of encasing the porcelain of China in metal mounts—for this the large monochrome pieces were preferred—had come in at an earlier period. The contorted forms of the gilt metal undoubtedly bring out by contrast the simple outlines and smooth surfaces of the crackle and celadon vases. In the Jones collection at South Kensington there are some superbly fine examples of this collocation of French and Chinese work. During the sixties and later it became the fashion to combine the ormolu and other kinds of metal-work with the Sèvres porcelain in many new ways, and the pendules of the time show ingenious combinations of the two materials in endless variety. It must be borne in mind that the simpler forms that we associate with the reign of Louis xvi. were already asserting themselves several years before the death of his predecessor.
If we examine the choicer pieces in any collection of Sèvres china, we find that the date-marks range within a very small interval of time—a few years on either side of 1760. This narrow limit for the best work is well exemplified both in the Jones collection and at Hertford House. We shall return to this point when describing the turquoise and rose grounds of this time.
Once established at Sèvres under direct royal patronage, the principal efforts of the staff were directed to the designing and the execution of elaborate dinner-services, destined to be presented in turn to the various crowned heads of Europe. As early as 1754 a service was made for Maria Theresa, la Reine-Impératrice. In 1758 a service with a green ground and figures, flowers, and birds in cartels was commanded by Louis xv. for presentation to the King of Denmark; in 1760 a service de table of two hundred and eighty-one pieces is presented to the Elector-Palatine Karl Theodor, the porcelain enthusiast of Frankenthal. In 1764, and again in 1772 and 1779, the Ministre d’État Bertin forwarded to the Chinese Emperor Kien-lung, through the medium of the Jesuit missionaries, presents of Sèvres porcelain.188 In 1768 and 1769 a further grand service de table, fond lapis caillouté189 is presented to the Danish king; in 1775 it is the turn of a Spanish princess, and in 1777 of the emperor. In 1778 the king sends to the Sultan of Morocco a tea-service, and at the same time presents other pieces of china to the Moorish ambassador. In the same year the Empress Catherine ordered at Sèvres the famous service of seven hundred and forty-four pieces, bleu céleste (i.e. turquoise) ground, decorated with camées incrustés. The flowers in this set were painted by Taillandier, and the gilding executed by Vincent and Le Guay. There is a plate from this service at South Kensington: on the centre the letter E, formed of minute flowers, and the Roman numeral II, stand for Ekaterina the Second. To this set belong also the three large brûle-parfums vases at Hertford House, and there are other pieces in private hands.190 The empress disputed the price (328,188 livres) demanded for the service, and a long diplomatic correspondence on the point has been preserved. M. Davillier gives some details of eight other royal services made between this time and the end of the century, among them one with green ground, for Prince Henry of Prussia (1784), of which several of the pieces were jewelled (ornées d’émaux), and in 1788 a grand service de table with vases, cups, pictures, and busts sent to Tippoo Saib, Sultan of Mysore.
PLATE XXXVIII. SÈVRES
It is usual to distinguish the different services, cabarets or garnitures, by the colour of the ground which is maintained throughout the set. Thus we find the fond lapis mentioned above and the fond vert, a peculiar shade of green very much admired at the time and often repeated in the lacquered furniture and even in the panels of a whole apartment.
We have already spoken of the Turquoise Blue, but the colour is so important that we will quote more fully the somewhat enigmatical account of it given by Hellot. ‘The bleu du roi ground, called before the Christmas fêtes of 1753 bleu ancien (Oriental turquoise by daylight, emerald or malachite by artificial light), with which his majesty has been so satisfied, is composed as follows....’ We are then told that we should purchase at the Sieur Moniac, in the Rue Quincampoise, opposite to, etc.;—but it is needless to follow these details—in fact I only quote a few words as a sample of Hellot’s innumerable recipes for colours. This blue enamel, for it is an enamel, and not painted sous couverte like the old Vincennes blue, is composed of ‘aigue-marine’ (some preparation of copper) three parts, Gravant’s glaze one part, and of minium one and a third parts. The ingredients are melted together, à très grand feu, and the resultant glass finely powdered. ‘This powder is dusted through a silk sieve, upon the mordant that has been applied to the surface of the already glazed porcelain. The piece is then heated in the “painter’s stove” (the muffle). The first layer of colour comes out sometimes crackled, and always irregular (mal unie). To make the enamel uniform, the piece is again coated and again passed through the painter’s stove.’ Not only the strength and quality of the enamel, but its tint also, vary much, even in pieces dating from the best period; some examples tend more to green than others. In the more brilliant and intense examples of the bleu céleste, to give the colour its old or one of its old names, the ground on close examination appears to be more or less mottled, darker clots, as it were, floating about in a lighter medium. Indeed some such ‘texture’ seems to be necessary to bring out the full effect and brilliancy in the case of other glazes and transparent enamels on porcelain, and to its absence the dull and ‘uninteresting’ aspect of much of our modern porcelain may be attributed.
Rose Pompadour.—We have seen that the various shades of pink derived from gold (see the note on p. 284) had for some time been used in the decoration of porcelain, but that the recipes for them were regarded as precious trade secrets. The rose carnée, or Pompadour191 (often wrongly called rose du Barry), belongs to this class. The credit of its first successful employment as a uniform ground-colour is probably due to the chemist Hellot.192 This colour was in use at Sèvres for only a short period of years, say between 1753 and 1763. The dated specimens in the Wallace collection range between 1754 and 1759. One is almost tempted to associate its sudden disappearance with some whim of Madame de Pompadour; perhaps having in her possession nearly all that had been made, she wished to ‘corner the market.’ The manufacture seems to have ceased before her death (1764), and afterwards the secret was lost. The rose carnée ground is often associated with one of apple-green, but the combination is not a very pleasing one.
PLATE XXXIX. SÈVRES
Great attention has always been paid to the Gilding at Sèvres. When applied heavily to the handles and feet of vases, it replaces, in some measure, the ormolu mounts. So, when surrounding the little pictures painted on the cartels of vases and bowls, or on the centre of plates, this gilding represents in position and design the gold frame of the period. At the time of the reorganisation of the works in 1753 we find, along with Bachelier and Duplessis, a certain Frère Hippolyte, a Benedictine monk, mentioned as the possessor of secret processes of gilding, and he was well paid for his periodical visits to the works. Bachelier, writing in 1781, has a note protesting against the excessive employment of gold. The prohibition of its use at other porcelain factories at this time was based, he says, on ‘economic grounds,’ that the metal might not be lost for commerce. ‘This enormous expenditure of gold,’ he protests, ‘is the more revolting, inasmuch as it is in bad taste.’ Bachelier distinguishes the ‘or bruni en effet’ from the ‘or bruni en totalité.’ By the use of the first, in opposition both to the unburnished and to the plain polished gold, it was intended to imitate chiselled metal (the ormolu mounts), and this method of burnishing, we are told, should be confined to large vases which are not subjected to any wear and tear by cleaning or otherwise. The gold, in all cases, was simply sprinkled on without the admixture of any flux, and the burnishing was carried out chiefly by women in a special department of the works. This burnishing was effected au clou, that is, by means of a stump of iron inserted at the end of a stick. Agate burnishers were not introduced till a later period. Great pressure was required in the earlier method, resulting in deeply incised lines, and there is less uniformity of surface than where the agate is used.
The Jewelled Sèvres has never found much favour in France, and the only name the French have for this decoration—porcelaine ornée d’émaux—is not very distinctive. A transparent, glassy, or sometimes an opaque enamel of very brilliant tint is applied in the form of little beads standing out in relief and set in gold mountings. This application of ‘appliqués gems in chased gold setting,’ unless used with great delicacy and moderation, produces a tawdry and overloaded effect, above all when applied upon coloured grounds. But when these little ‘paste-jewels’ are set upon the soft white of the Sèvres pâte tendre the result is sometimes very pleasing. On a cup and saucer belonging to Mr. Currie, now at South Kensington, the ruby and turquoise jewels are connected by branches of gold overlaid with a transparent green enamel (Pl. xl.). On the other hand, on a large ewer and basin of turquoise, with a decoration of gold, in the ‘Londonderry Cabinet’ at Hertford House, which has the date-letter for 1768, the original design is capriciously overlaid by a series of jewelled chains which (if we are to trust the date-mark on the ewer) must certainly have been added at a later time. Indeed the manufacture of this jewelled ware seems to have been confined to the years 1780-86.
When a school of painting was first established at Sèvres, it was to the fan-painters and to the miniature-painters in enamel that Bachelier turned for assistance, and we can detect the mannerisms peculiar to these two schools in the decoration of some of the earlier pieces made at Sèvres.
Marks.—By the royal decree of 1753, from which we have already quoted, it was ordered that all pieces should be marked with the well-known royal cipher, the double L, and that a letter-mark indicating the year should be added (Pl. d. 56). The single letters of the alphabet carry us from 1753 to 1776; after that double letters were used till 1793, when the king’s initial was replaced by the letters R. F., with the addition of the word Sèvres. A mark of this latter kind was in use till the end of the century, after which time no more soft paste was made.
PLATE XL. JEWELLED SÈVRES
Each artist marked his work with a monogram or a private sign, often suggested by a play upon the syllables of his name, as in the case of the canting arms of heraldry. For example, ‘2000’ (vingtcents) was adopted by Vincent, the famous gilder; a branch of a tree by Dubois; and, more strangely still, a triangle, the sign of the Trinity, by an artist named Dieu. These marks were placed underneath, or by the side of, the royal cipher. The marks of more than a hundred artists have been identified from the records kept at Sèvres—painters of flowers, garlands, landscapes, marines, genre-subjects, and finally gilders. A complete list of these men, with their marks, may be found in Garnier, Chaffers, and other writers on the subject.
The manufacture of true kaolinic porcelain was begun in 1769, but the soft paste continued to be made for another thirty years, side by side with the new ware. It was not till the year 1804 that it was finally abandoned by Brongniart, the new director. He found the soft-paste ware unsuitable for the big pieces now ordered by the Imperial Government. The paste was difficult to work, the preparation was expensive, and the dust formed both from the paste and from the lead glaze was injurious to the health of the workmen. One or two attempts have since been made at Sèvres to revive the old ware, but they have fallen through in every case.
Brongniart, in 1804, to provide funds for the impoverished works and to pay the arrears of wages to the workmen, threw on the market the large stock of plain white soft paste that had accumulated in the magazine. Now at that time there were in Paris many skilled porcelain painters, some of them ex-employés at Sèvres, and others, men who made a living by painting on the plain ware sent from Limoges and other factories. These ‘chambrelans’ (they painted at home, en chambre, and corresponded to our English ‘chamberers’) were now employed by the dealers who had eagerly bought up the ware that Brongniart had parted with.193 They painted and gilt this white ware in imitation of the Sèvres porcelain of the best period so successfully that the services they turned out have found their way into royal collections. This ware, in fact, forms a group by itself, quite apart from the later imitations of the pâte tendre, which, in every degree of merit and demerit, are now found in the china-shops of Europe and America. M. Garnier points out three signs by which this pseudo-Sèvres may be recognised: 1. The green prepared from the newly introduced chromium is of a warm yellowish tint, and displays none of the submetallic tints so often to be seen in enamels coloured by copper, as in the famille verte of China. 2. The gold on this bastard ware, burnished with an agate polisher, differs in quality of surface from the old gilding worked au clou. 3. The date-marks and painters’ monograms were copied at hazard from the old pieces—at that time no list of these marks had been made public—so that, for example, the monogram of a gilder may be found on a piece decorated in colours only.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE HARD-PASTE PORCELAIN OF SÈVRES AND PARIS
THE soft paste of Sèvres, even during the period of the fifties and sixties, when the most exquisite ware was being made, seems always to have been regarded somewhat as a make-shift, to be employed until the materials for making a true porcelain should be discovered in France. For it was the ignorance of the true nature of kaolin, and where to look for it, that so fortunately delayed its introduction at Sèvres. As early as the Vincennes days, one of the Hannongs of Strassburg had offered to sell his secret, and this offer was repeated at a later time by himself and by his son. At Sèvres, before 1760, two German workmen were retained to teach the Saxon process, but the materials had still to be obtained from Germany.
Meantime Macquer, who had succeeded to the post of scientific adviser on the death of Hellot, had been experimenting on his own account, and above all encouraging others to search for the precious white earth within French territory. At length, in 1760, some samples were sent from Alençon, from which a true porcelain was made, but of poor quality and of a grey colour. Outside the Sèvres works the younger Hannong had set up a factory at Vincennes, and the Comte de Brancas Lauraguais, whom we shall meet with again in England, had by 1764 begun his experiments and his search after deposits of kaolin. There still exist a few portrait-medallions moulded in hard porcelain, which, on the ground of the letters B. L. engraved on the back, have been attributed to that energetic nobleman.
The introduction, however, of the hard-paste porcelain at Sèvres dates from the discovery, in 1768, at Saint-Yrieix, near Limoges, of those famous deposits of kaolin which have ever since that time been the main resource of the French porcelain industry.194 Before the end of the year 1769 Macquer was able to show to the king the first samples of this new ware. The hard paste made for some years after this date was not of the ‘severe’ type adopted later on. Not only did it contain as much as 9 per cent. of lime, but, the kaolin employed being less pure, contained probably a good deal of mica—in fact, this first type of French hard paste approached in composition that of the Chinese. It is even more important to note that the glaze used at the same time was of an entirely different nature from the pure felspathic covering afterwards adopted. It was composed of Fontainebleau sand 40 per cent., potsherds of hard porcelain 48 per cent., and chalk 12 per cent. As a result, it was possible to decorate the surface with brilliant translucent enamels of some thickness.
It was the introduction of the felspathic glaze in 1780 that gave the final blow to the effective decoration of Sèvres porcelain. This glaze is made by simply fusing a natural rock (pegmatite) consisting of a mixture of potash felspar with a small quantity of quartz. The ease with which this glaze can be prepared, its hardness and uniformity of surface, led to its universal adoption not only at Sèvres but in the porcelain works of the Limoges district that have for the last hundred years supplied France with ordinary domestic wares—for such use its hardness renders it eminently suitable. But, as we have said, this combination of refractory paste and hard glaze is incompatible with any brilliancy of decorative effect, the enamel colours are quite unable to incorporate themselves with subjacent glaze, they lie dull and dead on the surface, and the faults of the German porcelain are exaggerated.
So with the paste, a much harder and more refractory type was introduced at the beginning of the next century, and (apart from the recent partial introduction of a milder type for special purposes) this type has remained in use to the present day. The lime in Brongniart’s new paste was reduced to 5 per cent., while the amount of kaolin (65 per cent.) is probably greater than in any other porcelain. There has been a reaction lately at Sèvres against this refractory ware, but the old formulas are still employed for the porcelain made for practical domestic use. When, however, brilliancy of effect and artistic decoration are aimed at, a completely new type both of paste and glaze has been in use since the year 1880, and concomitantly with the imitation of the Chinese monochrome wares, an attempt has been made to follow as closely as possible the pastes and glazes of the Chinese. M. Vogt, the present technical director at Sèvres, who has had so much to do with these changes, gives the following formula for the composition of the new porcelain: kaolin 38 per cent., felspar 38 per cent., quartz 24 per cent. The lime, it will be seen, has been completely eliminated from the paste; on the other hand, the glaze contains as much as 33 per cent. of the Craie de Bougival.
It would be a dreary task to enter with any detail into the history of the Sèvres works during the hundred years following the first introduction of the hard paste. This period is associated in most minds with the colossal vases that are to be found in so many of the palaces and museums of Europe. To judge from these examples, it would seem that the chief object both of the design and the decoration was to conceal as far as possible the nature of the material used in their composition. You have first to persuade yourself that you are looking at something made of porcelain: once convinced of this, you marvel at the technical difficulties that have been overcome in its manufacture, but what it never even occurs to one to look for in these monstrous vases, is any trace of that beauty of surface and brilliancy of decoration that we are accustomed to associate with the substance of which they are composed.
The ‘Medici Vase’ now in the Louvre is probably the earliest of this long series. This vase dates from the year 1783, and it is nearly seven feet in height. But it was in the pseudo-classical style of the empire, when encouraged by Napoleon’s love of the gigantic, and by his desire ‘à faire parler la porcelaine,’195 that this new application of porcelain found its full expression. It is then that we find vases, candelabra, surtouts de table and clocks, in styles distinguished as Egyptian, Etruscan, Imperial, and Olympian. After this we can follow the decline of taste in the succeeding régimes till, with the total extinction of all feeling for harmony of colour and unity of composition, we are landed—in the reign of the ‘bourgeois king’—in the style or absence of style which is the French equivalent of our ‘Early Victorian.’
There is one name above all others that is associated, at Sèvres, with this long period, that of Alexandre Brongniart, who was director of the works from the year 1804 until his death in 1847. The son of a well-known architect, and himself a fellow-worker with Cuvier, he attained some distinction both as a geologist and as a chemist. It was indeed from the point of view of a man of science that he approached the subject of ceramics,—as a geologist to examine the position and stratigraphical relation of any material suitable for fictile purposes, as a chemist to analyse these materials and to discover fresh metallic combinations suitable for glazes and enamels.
It was at this time, and chiefly under the influence of Brongniart,196 that the palette of the enameller was enlarged by the introduction of so many new colours, the employment of which gives a new cachet to the decoration of the nineteenth century. Perhaps the most important advance was in the employment of oxide of zinc in the flux, by means of which the colours of many metallic oxides are developed and sometimes altered. The green derived from chromium is essentially a nineteenth century colour, and as it resists the highest temperature this green can be used, like the cobalt blue, as an under-glaze colour. From the chromate of lead an orange-red is obtained—the rouge cornalia, a crude and dangerous colour, and one that does not withstand high temperatures. An orange-yellow from uranium, and a deep and uniform black from iridium, were also introduced at this time or not long afterwards. The ‘English pink,’ the lilac tint so extensively used in the transfer-printing of earthenware, was successfully imitated by adding a small quantity of oxide of chromium to a flux containing oxides of tin, lime, and alumina. The celadon green of Sèvres is derived, not from the protoxide of iron, but from the sesqui-oxide of chromium, with the addition of a minute quantity of copper.
Brongniart’s great work, the Traité des Arts Céramiques, still remains our main authority on the technical and scientific side of the art of the potter, and it was he who, by establishing the museum and organising the laboratories at Sèvres, made that town a centre for all who are interested not only in the special branch of porcelain, but in the whole field of ceramic art. The position established by him has been well maintained by his successors, by Salvétat, by Ebelmen, by Deck, and at the present time by MM. Lauth and Vogt on the technical side—above all by Édouard Garnier, the present director of the Sèvres Museum.197 These men have succeeded, in spite of much opposition, in again bringing the national manufactory of porcelain at least on to a level with the artistic movement of the day.
In tracing the history of the Sèvres porcelain during the last hundred years and more we can find at least one interesting aspect—we can follow the steps by which the ware has responded to the social and political changes that have followed one another in France during that time. The affectation of simple and homely tastes, and the sentimental tone fashionable in society during the years preceding the Revolution, are reflected in both the forms and the painting of the ware then made. The classical spirit that already in the time of Louis xvi. had found a place alongside of these idyllic aspirations somewhat later, under the lead of David, ruled every form of art. The various phases of the Revolution are reflected in the decoration of the porcelain, which even became a means of political propaganda. At the Hôtel Carnavalet, the museum at Paris consecrated to the history of the city, the political changes of this period may be traced in a series of plates and cups, some of them of Sèvres porcelain, decorated with emblems and allegorical figures relating first to the liberal monarchy of the early years of the Revolution, and then in the sterner days of the Convention (when indeed the existence of the works was only saved by the presence of mind of the minister Paré) to the patriotic efforts of the leaders, and to the successes of the republican armies. Portraits of the heroes of the national assemblies and of the clubs, surmounted by caps of liberty and framed in arrangements of pikes and drums, replaced the nymphs and flowers of an earlier period, and even the guillotine, it is said, has found a place in the decoration. A few years later the military element was even more predominant. Eagles and thunderbolts, surrounded by trophies of war, battle-scenes and the entry into Paris of the victorious legions, commemorate the conquests of Napoleon.
After the Restoration the decoration of the gigantic vases, each new one overtopping its predecessor, became more and more pictorial. To obtain a better field for this pictorial display the greatest pains were taken to produce large plaques of porcelain, some as much as four feet in length, on which a school of accomplished artists painted laborious reproductions of famous pictures, ancient and modern. Not a few of these enamel-painters, at this time, came from Geneva, and some of the ablest were ladies. Many remarkable specimens of this misdirected skill may be seen in the Sèvres Museum, and also in a room of the picture-gallery at Turin.
Under the republican régime that succeeded the revolution of 1848, it was again proposed for a moment to sever the connection with the State, but with the establishment of the second empire a fresh life was given to the manufactory, on the appointment of Dieterle, an artist of repute, to the directorship. Some new developments were now attempted, especially in the introduction of coloured pastes. It was only after many fruitless attempts that any results were obtained by this new system. It is indeed a process quite foreign to the nature of porcelain, and even when technically successful the result is far from satisfactory. At a later time, however, the experience gained by the experiments of Salvétat enabled a potter of great skill and some feeling for art to employ the coloured pastes with greater simplicity and better effect. M. Solon, since so well known in England, was the most successful worker in this material. The decoration in his hands took the form of a white slip, or barbotine, laid on a coloured ground. After firing, the light and shade of the design is brought out by the varying thickness of the now translucent coating, which allows more or less of the coloured ground to be seen through it. In spite of its delicacy and refinement the effect of this work is somewhat effete, both in style and colour. In inferior hands, working with poorer material, the result is deplorable.
At the present time, after experiments with many materials—the crystalline glazes made with bismuth were at one time in favour—it is to the production of artistic effects by means of single glazes that the greatest attention is given at Sèvres, following more or less in the lines of the flambé wares of China. Not long since, a proposal was again made in the Chamber of Deputies that the support of the Government should be withdrawn from the factory. It is said that a timely report in an English paper to the effect that, in such a case, the works would be run by an Anglo-American syndicate, had not a little to do with the defeat of this motion.