CHAPTER VI
EARLY BLUE-AND-WHITE
UNDERGLAZE PAINTED
CHAPTER VI
EARLY BLUE-AND-WHITE UNDERGLAZE PAINTED
The "Danish Pattern"—The Bornholm Clay period—Peculiarities in marking—Table of Marks (old blue-and-white underglaze painted porcelain).
The blue-and-white underglaze painted porcelain of Copenhagen has become recognized as characteristic of the royal factory and of Denmark. The original design is of Chinese origin, in common with other forms of decoration, centuries old, followed by all European potters in early days when the art of making true porcelain was discovered in the West. But, like many another transplantation in art, it found congenial atmosphere, and has become national to the country of its adoption. The light, graceful plant motif shown in the blue-and-white painted fluted porcelain is as welcome a sight to Danes the world over as the slender twin spires of Roskilde Cathedral, where the kings of Denmark sleep in eternal peace.
The "Danish pattern" bears in a measure a certain relationship to works in literature where the translation is greater than the original.
This is especially true when the work of a decadent period is translated into the richer tongue of a more golden age. The English Bible translated in the time of James I is richer in its fine wealth of prose than the "original sacred tongues."
Some arts have been lost. It is said that the art of translation has never been discovered. All have laboured after it in vain; it is as hard to seek as hidden treasure, and one never finds it. But the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory found the "hidden treasure" in the design which has grown into a thousand shapes inspired by the traditions of Müller, who "laid the East in fee," and whose successors true to his memory are not those