Porcelain

by Edward Dillon

The Porcelaines de France, for that is the name given in the eighteenth century to the ware produced under royal patronage, were first made in the factory established in the riding-school at Vincennes, and at the present day the works are within the confines of the park of Saint-Cloud. It will, however, be convenient to include the whole series under the name of Sèvres.[178]

Our knowledge of the technical side of the subject is derived, as we have seen, from the report that Hellot presented to the king in 1753. For the history of the foundation of the works and the selection of the artists, we are chiefly dependent upon a memoir, written in 1781 for the information of the Government, by Bachelier, an artist who had been attached to the works as painter on porcelain since the year 1748.[179] In this memoir we can trace the troubled history of the years of ill-success and financial difficulties that preceded the final establishment of the royal works at Sèvres—Tantæ molis erat! ...

There were two names that we must always associate with this long struggle: during the earlier period, at Vincennes, Orry de Fulvi, the brother of the contrôleur général de finance; and after his death, Madame de Pompadour. It is rather a shady story upon the whole, and at the opening we are reminded of the adventures of the arcanist Ringler at the various German courts. M. de Fulvi, who had long been interested in experiments on the manufacture of porcelain, started at Vincennes with the assistance of two worthless and drunken ‘experts’ (the equivalent of the German ‘arcanists’) who had been tempted away from Chantilly.[180] After repeated failures and much loss of money, the recipes were stolen from one of those men by an astute and sober assistant, one Gravant, to whom the whole charge of the mixing of the materials was now confided.[181] Other workmen, and further secrets relating to the preparation of the enamels were obtained from Chantilly by means of a free expenditure of money, and a certain success was the result. But meantime the funds of M. de Fulvi are exhausted, and resort must be had to his brother, Philibert Orry, the finance minister. This was in 1745, and we see in this step the first definite intervention of the Government. A company was now formed, with important privileges for thirty years, and by the influence of the minister, Hellot, from whose report we have already quoted, was appointed chemical adviser, Duplessis, the kings goldsmith (or rather silversmith—argentier) was placed at the head of the mechanical department, and a few years later, in 1748, Bachelier, to whom we are chiefly indebted for the history of the works, became inspector of painting and gilding. Bachelier was not of much note as an artist.[182] It was to his organising power and energy, however, that the group of artists and sculptors who have given such fame to the porcelain of Sèvres was first brought together.

On his appointment, says Bachelier, his first care was to abandon ‘la grossière imitation du Japon’, and to furnish the ateliers with pictures, models, and prints, ‘dans tous les genres, pour remplacer les productions chinoises qu’on y copiait encore.’[183]

Both M. de Fulvi and his brother died in 1751, the company was broken up, and but for the energy and influence of a certain M. Hultz, of whom nothing further is known, the manufacture would have come to an end. We must remember that on the death of the finance minister, his former enemy, Madame de Pompadour, practically took his place. Her power was at that time at its height (she ‘reigned’ from 1745 to her death in 1764), so that we may perhaps regard the M. Hultz of Bacheliers memoir as one of the favourite’s ‘ghosts.’

It was certainly the influence of the Marquise de Pompadour that induced Louis xv., in 1753, to sign the arrêt by which the title of Manufacture Royale de Porcelaine was conferred on the establishment. At the same time many important privileges were granted. The establishment was now removed to Sèvres, where a plot of ground containing some glass-works, the property of the favourite, was bought for 66,000 livres, and the new factory set up in an adjacent domain that had formerly belonged to the musician Lully. The king subscribed for a quarter of the new capital. The troubles, however, were not yet ended: the workshops were badly built and badly arranged. Finally, in 1759, Louis took over all the shares of the company, which was at that time in liquidation. A yearly grant of 96,000 livres secured the financial position. In all these arrangements we see the hand of the Pompadour, and still more in the keen way in which the business side of the establishment was pushed. At the New Year a sale took place at Versailles, in the palace. The king presided, and fixed the prices of the porcelain. A large purchase of china on these occasions was a sure way to royal favour and promotion.[184]

A good deal of uncertainty hangs over the nature of the early work produced at Vincennes, and no definite mark has been assigned to the factory, before the time when the permission to use the double L was granted, in 1751 or 1753. When, however, the royal cipher occurs without a year letter, there is some presumption in favour of a date previous to the latter year ([Pl. d]. 55).

We should infer from what Bachelier tells us that up to 1748 the designs were chiefly derived from Oriental china. But in addition the following forms and styles were in use in the pre-royal period at Vincennes:—

1. A rage for the production of artificial flowers, especially in plain white ware, existed at one time, and when the Vincennes artists were able to rival the Dresden flowers that had previously been imported, from this department alone was a steady source of income obtained. The flowers first produced were confined merely to small detached blossoms, but in 1748 M. de Fulvi presented to the queen a trophy of white porcelain which surpassed anything yet manufactured. On a base or pedestal of white ware, mounted in gilt bronze, rises a small tree completely covered with blossom of white porcelain, under which stand three female figures of the same material. The whole trophy is about three feet in height.[185] So again in 1750 we hear that the king had ordered similar bouquets of flowers, ‘peintes au naturel,’ which were to cost 800,000 livres! This for the famous Château de Bellevue, and for Madame de Pompadour.[186]

2. Much of the porcelain made at Vincennes at this time (1740-50) was decorated with scattered groups of flowers on a white ground, a style then known as fleurs de Saxe. These flowers were often in high relief, and in this case they formed a passage to the first group.