Unmarked.
After Böttger’s death in 1719 the painter Herold became the leading spirit of the factory, and painting began to play the chief rôle in the decoration of the wares. The earlier French borders gave place for a time to faithful copies of Oriental patterns selected from the royal collection, those of the Japanese Kakiyemon being specially in favour. By 1730 a distinctive Meissen style had arisen, characterised by simple baroque forms and a decoration of panels enclosed with borders of delicate symmetrical scrollwork in gold and colours, often reserved on a monochrome ground; the panels are filled either with groups of pseudo-Chinese figures, or with landscape subjects depicting wide open country with broad rivers, reminiscent of the lowland scenery to the north of Dresden.
The appointment of the sculptor Johann Joachim Kändler, in 1731, to be superintendent of the modellers, led to a revolution in the character of the wares. If painted figure-subjects were introduced, the favourite themes were gallant parties of ladies and gentlemen in the manner of Watteau, but relief ornament and not painting now became the leading feature; the style adopted in the modelling was a modified form of the French rococo, and impressed itself on the productions of most of the German factories which sprang up in rivalry with Meissen. The very spirit of the German rococo is embodied in the countless figures and groups, destined among other purposes to form part of table-services as decorative “Tafelaufsätze,” which were modelled during this period by Kändler and his associates; as we shall see later, they were extensively copied in the earliest English china works. The development of sculpture in porcelain inaugurated at Meissen is a branch of the art in which Europe attained a proficiency absolutely unknown in China; the German factories in particular excelled in their skill in this class of work.
The state of warfare in which Germany was plunged about the middle of the century was a serious check to the progress of the works. When peace was restored in 1763, a new spirit began to manifest itself, contemporaneously with the addition to the staff of the French modeller Acier. The change was completed under the directorship of Count Camillo Marcolini, which lasted from 1774 to 1814. Just as in music, an art in which Germany enjoyed at that time an unquestioned supremacy, the sprightly melodies of Haydn gave place to the graver harmonies of Beethoven, so in porcelain too the altered mood of the age was reflected. Florid rococo forms were abandoned and replaced by the severer contours and simpler decoration of the classic style of Louis XVI. The philosophic sentimentalism of the day was not interested in the pretty but aimless frivolities of the Watteau school, and subjects of an entirely different order were chosen to fill panels and medallions. A service at South Kensington is painted with a series of careful miniatures in illustration of Goethe’s Sorrows of Werther, a work in which the spirit of the age is characteristically expressed. Other favourite themes were Angelica Kauffmann’s renderings of the more sentimental stories of classical mythology.
The Meissen vase chosen for illustration in [Plate 20], one of a set of three in the Jones Bequest, dates from the earlier years of Count Marcolini’s management. The slight decoration of dainty and pleasing effect allows the fine qualities of the paste to be fully appreciated. The various ornamental features embody in characteristic manner the ideas of the age. The symmetrical amphora form, the square architectural plinth, the wreaths of oak on the cover and foot, point to the new interest awakened in ancient, more particularly Roman, art by the publication of the antiquities of Herculaneum; the garlands and festoons of forget-me-nots recall the sentiment of an age that amused itself with the study of the “language of flowers.”
* * * * *
The Meissen factory had not long been working before its success suggested the introduction of the manufacture of porcelain in other German states, and in less than fifty years from the date of the royal patent of Augustus the Strong, a porcelain factory was considered a necessary adjunct to the Court of even the minor German rulers. The influence of Meissen is everywhere apparent, but individuality shown in various directions by a few of the rivals entitles them to special mention. The seniority amongst these belongs to Vienna, where a factory was set up as early as 1718 by a Dutchman with the help of workmen who had escaped from Meissen; in 1744 it became an imperial institution. The style of the wares followed closely on that of the parent works, until financial embarrassments led to a complete reorganisation under Baron von Sorgenthal in 1784. The change was heralded by the adoption of severely angular shapes, and of romantic or mythological subjects pictorially rendered, within elaborate borders composed of classical motives carried out in rich highly-burnished gilding on panels of gorgeous colouring; the true qualities of porcelain were forgotten in the effort to arrive at the highest pitch of sumptuous richness.
* * * * *
The factory of Höchst, under the patronage of the Elector of Mainz, famous for its figures of children modelled by Johann Peter Melchior, was also founded with the help of a Meissen artist. Again, it was his marriage with a Saxon princess that awakened in the Elector of Bavaria, Max Josef III., the desire to possess his own porcelain kilns. These were erected at first at Neudeck, near Munich, and were removed in 1758 to Nymphenburg. Thanks to an Italian sculptor, Franz Bastelli, the Bavarian factory takes foremost rank in Germany for its statuettes; whether characters from the Italian comedy, or dancing cavaliers and ladies, they display in their crisp, nervous lines, a spontaneity tempered by masterly restraint which is best appreciated when the white porcelain is left to speak for itself, unobscured by the application of enamel colouring.