Chats on Royal Copenhagen Porcelain

by Arthur Hayden

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.

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.