Russian Porcelain—Hard Paste.—When Peter Alexeyevitch, called Peter the Great—that shrewd savage—undertook to make his kingdom a power in Europe, he soon saw that he must create among his people wants which then did not exist. In 1697 he made his first pilgrimage to the dock-yards of Saardam and the quays of London, to see for himself what those nations did to make themselves rich and strong, feared if not loved. He found ships, trade, factories. He went back to his barbarians, and forced them to build a new port—St. Petersburg (1703); set them to work to make dock-yards, to build ships, to organize factories; he forced upon them new wants and new industries. If he did not make them happier, he certainly made them stronger. He organized them, combined them, so that they moved at his own powerful will. His successors, following his example, have made Russia the second power of Europe. When, in 1716, Peter visited Paris, he carried back to his capital great store of works of art—not that he cared for works of art, but his savage shrewdness told him these were the things which the growing and grasping nations of Western Europe valued; and so he would have them, too. But Art has had but an imitative life in Russia, even to this present time. Now, her silversmiths, and at least one artist, a worker of bronze named Lanceray, have made such exquisite work, and shown it at the Philadelphia Exhibition in 1876, that one begins to believe that Art in this savage Russia may not forever be content to copy what some one else has done. As to porcelain, Russia has not done much, but yet something.
The Government of Russia, inspired, like the rest, after the success at Dresden, with the desire to produce fine works, at once made efforts to secure the services of accomplished men to establish a porcelain-manufactory. This appears to have been done in the year 1744, by the Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, when good porcelain was produced, probably in small amount. In 1765, however, the Empress Catherine II., with her accustomed restless energy, threw herself into the competition. She enlarged the works and secured whatever was possible of artists and workmen, and produced some of the finest porcelains of Europe. The clays used appear to have been wholly Russian, and her market was mostly with the rich nobility of her own kingdom. Still the china-fanciers of all Europe, then even more eager than now, purchased the Russian work; and it is found in good collections, though but little of it is offered for sale.
M. Demmin quotes from a Russian work of 1773: “Il existe une fabrique de porcelaine, située sur la Néva, route de Schlüsselburg, à quatorze versts de Pétersbourg. Elle fabrique des porcelaines tellement belles et fines, qu’elles ne le cèdent en rien à la porcelaine de Saxe, soit pour la blancheur et la finesse de l’émail, soit pour la beauté du décor. Sa blancheur est même supérieure à celle de Meissen. Le directeur, l’inspecteur, tous les maîtres et ouvriers sont à la solde de la cour,” etc.
The porcelain has a fine glaze, the paste being hard and slightly bluish; the decorations usually highly finished in the styles prevailing at Dresden.
