CHAPTER VIII
THE MODERN
RENAISSANCE
CHAPTER VIII
THE MODERN RENAISSANCE
The after-effects of war—Philip Schou, Councillor of State, rebuilds the factory—Arnold Krog appointed art director—A new technique developed—Triumph of modern Copenhagen porcelain—The new impulses stimulate other European potters—A new note added to European ceramic art—The avoidance of classic or stereotyped styles—The idiosyncrasies of Copenhagen—Intense national sentiment of Copenhagen—Marks of leading painters and modellers.
On the threshold of the great Renaissance of art which re-established the name and fame of the Royal Copenhagen Factory, it is necessary to look at the subject from more than one point of view. The fire which Müller had lit had been burning dimly; indeed, save for the blue-and-white utilitarian ware, it had almost gone out. The Copenhagen factory was a century old in the seventies. Most of our English porcelain factories had put out their furnaces for ever. Chelsea, Derby, Plymouth, Bristol, and Bow had entered that ghostly realm where collectors snatch at the body of the potters and posterity portions out the inheritance of the departed great.
The years of the English porcelain factories, with their triumphs and their decadence, were compassed within the span of a man's life. Plymouth and Bristol, the only hard-paste factories, together ran less than twenty years. Bow succumbed in less than half a century. Chelsea existed only thirty-nine years, and Derby, with all its vicissitudes of fortune, changing hands many times, never reached a century old. The Worcester factory is the only English porcelain factory in existence to-day with a history which goes back to the middle years of the eighteenth century.