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.
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."