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.