Could the taste and the art which prevailed at Sèvres escape this? It could not, and it did not.
While, therefore, we cannot but admire the care, the pains, the skill, of the workmen and the artists, let us not be misled by the false glamour of that time, so as to learn to love or to imitate their florid and extravagant tastes in architecture, in furniture, in dress, or in porcelain.
Chaffers, in his work upon “Pottery and Porcelain,” gives the private marks of some one hundred and twenty-six painters, who were employed at Sèvres before 1800, and quite a number who have painted there since. Among these are some who reached a European reputation: of these Boucher is perhaps most famous; his medallions are sought for, and highly valued.
Fig. 133.—Enameled Sèvres Vase, called “Vase Genicault.”
A distinction is sometimes made between old Sèvres and modern Sèvres. The old—vieux Sèvres—comes down to the year 1800; after that it is designated as modern, for convenience. It does not intend to exalt one and condemn the other, as too many now are apt to think, the truth being that equally good work has been done since that time as before it.