French Porcelain.
The desire to imitate the porcelain ware of China led to the discovery of the soft paste (pâte tendre). The names “porcelaine de France” and “Sèvres porcelain” have also been given to it. As previously mentioned, it was made at Rouen in 1690, at St. Cloud in 1698, and at Lille in 1711, but in all these cases in a small and tentative way.
The composition of the paste in the French soft porcelain is described by MM. Gasnault and Garnier in their handbook of “French Pottery” as follows: “The paste was composed of the sand of Fontainebleau, saltpetre, sea salt, soda (soude d’Alicante), alum, gypsum, or parings of alabaster; all these elements were mixed together and placed in an oven in a layer of considerable thickness, where, after being baked for at least fifty hours, they formed a perfectly white frit, or vitrefied paste. The frit was mixed with Argenteuil marl in the proportion of nine pounds of frit to three pounds of marl, &c.”
The glaze is described as consisting of “the sand of Fontainebleau, litharge, salts of soda, Bougival silex or gun-flint, and potash.” All these were ground and melted together, and afterwards the vitreous mass was re-ground in water and thus formed the glaze.
The soft paste is much superior for artistic works owing to the glaze incorporating with the colours in a perfect manner, rendering them equally brilliant with the enamel, but this is not the case with the hard or natural kaolin, as the glaze on this does not blend completely with the colours of the decoration. The soft paste porcelain is, however, too porous for articles of domestic use, and can be tested by its being easily scratched by a knife.
Fig. 61.—Sèvres Vase; Jones Collection. (S.K.M.)
The Marquis Orry de Fulvey made an attempt to establish the soft paste porcelain works at Vincennes in 1741, but this was not a success. It was established again under new conditions in 1745, and after many experiments some important vases were made decorated with flowers in relief. The manufactory was reorganized again and removed to Sèvres, near Paris, in the year 1756. The products of the Sèvres works at this time were the fine vases with the bleu de roi, or bleu de Sèvres, and the lovely rose Pompadour colours, and numerous fancy articles, as heads of canes, buttons, snuff-boxes, needle-cases, also table services, &c. Many artists were employed to paint the flower and figure decorations; the latter were painted after the designs of Boucher, Vanloo, and others.
The soft paste porcelain was made from about 1700 to 1770. Some of the finest soft paste Sèvres porcelain may be seen in the Jones Collection at South Kensington, of which there are nearly sixty examples. The vase (Fig. 61) has a dark blue ground. The clock of Sèvres porcelain (Fig. 62) is a beautiful and unique example that was made especially for Marie Antoinette. The clock is mounted in ormoulu by Gouthière, and is in his best style of work.
The egg-shaped vase (Fig. 63) has a blue ground and is decorated with subject of Cupid and Psyche.
The artists Falconet, Clodion, La Rue, and Bachelier modelled and designed many of the statuettes, plaques, and vases for the Sèvres manufactory.
Cabinets and tables of the Louis Seize period were often inlaid with painted plaques of Sèvres ware, and have ormoulu mountings. This kind of furniture is exceedingly refined in design and workmanship, and reflects in a high degree the Pompadour and Du Barry period of French taste.
Fig. 62.—Sèvres Porcelain Clock; Jones Collection. (S.K.M.)
In 1768 beds of kaolin clay were found in France at St. Yrieix, near Limoges. Maquer, a chemist attached to the Sèvres factory, in 1769 submitted for the king’s (Louis XVI.) inspection at the Château of Versailles sixty pieces of the new hard porcelain made from this native clay.
Fig. 63.—Sèvres Vase, dark blue; Jones Collection. (S.K.M.)
During the time of the French Revolution the manufactory was in a critical state of existence, but was still kept in a working state. In the year 1800 Alexandre Brongniart was appointed director, a post he held for forty-seven years—and after his appointment the manufacture of soft porcelain ceased.
In his time the manufactory was in a state of great prosperity, and the science he brought to bear on the manufacturing processes was of immense importance. Vases over seven feet in height were produced, and the pieces which were made were ornamented with trophies and battle scenes that glorified the events in the reign of Napoleon I.
In the reign of Louis Philippe the artists Fragonard, Chenavard, Clerget, and Julienne introduced a new style of Renaissance decoration and design, but this was of a heavy and overloaded order that was not exactly suited to the character of porcelain.
About the middle of the present century Louis Robert, the chief painter at Sèvres, introduced the novelty of coloured pastes, which was to develop later into the pâte-sur-pâte process, so successfully practised by the talented M. Solon, who has executed so much of this beautiful work for Minton’s in England. The process of Louis Robert consisted in the use of porcelain paste coloured with oxides. A barbotine or slip was made of this composition and paintings were executed with it in slight relief, the white paste being used chiefly on a coloured ground, the modelling or light and shade being regulated according to the thickness of the semi-transparent material employed. When finished this kind of work has a cameo-like effect.