Porcelain

by Edward Dillon

3. There exist certain small pieces, chiefly cups and saucers (of the trembleuse type, as usual at this time), with a ground of a deep blue. A great vigour and depth is given to the colour (known later as bleu du roi) by its somewhat irregular or mottled texture, a result, it is said, of the manner in which it was painted on to the biscuit (it is an underglaze colour) with a brush. We may note that the use of a dark ground for porcelain was exceptional at this time in France. This bleu de Vincennes was imitated with some success by Sprimont at Chelsea.

Gravant (he who had the secret of the paste) had before 1753, so Hellot tells us in his report, succeeded in making a paste much whiter than that of Chantilly, so as to allow of a ‘couverte crystalline et parfaitement diaphane’ in place of the opaque ‘vernix de Fayance’ (sic) used by Ciron at that factory. It is indeed important to remember that before the works were removed from Vincennes, the soft paste that we know as Sèvres had already reached its highest development both as regards the materials and the decoration. The most

PLATE XXXVI. SÈVRES

beautiful and characteristic colours were already used with complete mastery, and (certainly by the year 1753) the paintings of the cartels had attained a delicacy and finish never surpassed in later times,—this is at least true of certain classes of subjects, the amorini and wreaths of flowers, for instance. In proof of this I need only point to certain pieces of turquoise in the Wallace collection (Gallery xv., Case A.), above all to the soupière (No. 7), modelled, no doubt, after a silversmith’s design. If we compare such pieces to the porcelain of Saint-Cloud and Chantilly, or to the somewhat tentative work turned out at Vincennes itself but a few years earlier, it is difficult to account for this rapid advance, especially at a time of change and financial difficulties. This is certainly the most interesting period—(I mean the years just at the middle of the century)—in the whole history of French porcelain, and we must remember that the change came about precisely at the time (1751) when Madame de Pompadour’s influence became predominant.

The free access to the royal factory—the workshops seem to have been regarded at one time as a fashionable lounge—made the preservation of any secret processes very difficult. Bachelier says that ‘on vient s’y promener comme dans les maisons royales,’ and he complains bitterly of the loss of time, the dirt, and the accidents caused by the throng of people. A succession of edicts, one as early as the year 1747, was issued, restricting the access of visitors.

When the difficulties connected with the paste and the decoration had been surmounted, a demand arose for protection against the competition of outside works. With this object a whole series of edicts, many of them of a contradictory nature, was issued between the years 1750 and 1780. Of these the special aim was to prevent or hamper the production of porcelain in other works, above all in those within a certain radius of Paris, or failing that, at least to restrict the use of colour, and especially of gilding, by such works as had to be tolerated.

At the time of the removal to Sèvres the staff consisted of more than a hundred workmen. Duplessis, the silversmith of the king, was intrusted with the modelling and with the general artistic direction, and Hellot, as we have seen, was what we should now call ‘scientific adviser.’[187]

Bachelier complains that the nature of the paste and glaze was unfavourable to the production of small figures, ‘luisantes et colorées,’ like those of Saxony. He claims to have been the first—this was as early as 1748—to recommend the use of white biscuit to reproduce in porcelain, among other things, ‘some of the pastoral ideas of M. Boucher,’ and this style, he tells us, ‘had a great success up to the time when M. Falconet, to whom the department was intrusted in 1757, introduced a more noble style, one more generalised and less subject to the evolution of fashion.’ Falconet was carried off to Russia in 1766, to execute for Catherine ii. the great statue of Peter the Great, and Bachelier then took his place. It was under Falconet that the best work was produced in this department, although at a later date such well-known names as Robert le Lorrain, Pajou, Clodion, Pigalle, and Houdon are found upon the books of the Sèvres works. No biscuit statuettes of pâte tendre were made after the year 1777.