(a) The Oriental school, the wares principally imitated being—1. The white porcelain of Fukien, with decoration in relief, often of prunus blossom. 2. ‘Blue and white,’ the blue under the glaze—this is often combined with the previous class. 3. The earlier type of Imari, that known at the time as ‘old Japan,’ or ‘partridge and wheatsheaf.’ 4. The somewhat later type of Imari with brocaded pattern, what we now call ‘old Japan.’ The enamelled wares of the great revival under Kang-he and his successors, though valued by collectors both here and in France, were less often copied.
(b) The European school, which derived its inspiration from—1. The early wares of Saint-Cloud, and later from those of Vincennes and Sèvres. Speaking generally, the influence of Sèvres became predominant after 1755, and to some extent ousted the earlier Oriental motifs. 2. Dresden, which gave the type for the statuettes and also for the elaborate painting of flowers and realistic landscapes on plates and dishes. This German influence, favouring a dullish scheme of colour and a ‘tight’ execution, was more apparent at an earlier and again at a later period; during the best time, say from 1755 to 1770, it was eclipsed by that of Sèvres.
It must be remembered that England is the only country where porcelain has been successfully made without royal or princely patronage. The various kilns were here without exception founded as commercial speculations—they were essentially the outcome of middle-class enterprise. There was, it is true, at one time some question at Chelsea of royal patronage, as represented by the Duke of Cumberland, but this came to nothing. Some interest was taken and some advice given on the artistic side by one or two great noblemen—by the third Duke of Argyll, for instance, an admirer of the ‘Kakiyemon’ decoration—but the capital to start and maintain the works came from the pockets of the more enterprising and businesslike of the designers and decorators themselves, men like Sprimont and Duesbury, assisted by local bankers, merchants, and physicians.
As a result, we find that a great feature in the commercial management, one that was quite peculiar to our island, was formed by the annual sales by auction, advertised beforehand in the local papers. It was by careful search through these advertisements and through the old sale catalogues that the late Mr. Nightingale was able to clear up some at least of the difficulties and misconceptions that have surrounded the history of English porcelain. The too ready acceptance of anecdotes and ‘pleasant stories,’ copied from one writer to another with occasional embellishments, has been the cause of much confusion. These have originated in many cases from the senile gossip of decayed workmen. The same may be said of the disproportionate attention given to marks, to which more care has been given than to a critical discrimination of the differences that distinguish the paste, the glaze, and the decoration of different wares.
How little was known a few years ago about the composition of our English porcelains is shown by the general acceptance of the statement that Spode, about the year 1800, introduced the use of bone-ash. It is now known that nearly fifty years before that time the use of a phosphatic paste was general in England, and, according to Professor Church, in ninety per cent. of the specimens in our collections bone-ash is an essential constituent. Thus the one original discovery that we can claim for our country was either forgotten or ignored.
Apart from the hard porcelain of Plymouth and Bristol, our English pastes may be divided into three classes. That first used was probably copied as closely as possible from the pastes of Saint-Cloud and Chantilly. It was a mixture of sand from Alum Bay and pipeclay from Dorsetshire, with an amount of glass, in the form of a frit, sufficient to ensure translucency. Before long the sand and clay were replaced in great measure by bone-ash, and we get the ‘natural soft paste’ especially characteristic of English eighteenth century porcelain. Finally, at the beginning of the next century Spode replaced the glassy frit by a mixture of kaolin and china-stone, retaining the bone-ash. A paste of this type has been in use ever since. Thus, in the year 1840, the ordinary commercial porcelain of Staffordshire, which in its origin was a development of the artistic wares of the eighteenth century, was made from Cornish kaolin 31 parts, Cornish china-stone 26 per cent., flint 2·5 per cent., and ‘prepared bones’ 40·5 per cent.[209] The last material is made from the roasted bones of oxen, now largely imported for this purpose from South America. The glaze on the earlier wares was essentially a silicate of lead and potash, compounded from white lead, nitre, and salt. But at present a harder glaze is used for the Staffordshire porcelain: it contains, in addition to the above substances, a considerable quantity of china-stone and china-clay, together with a little borax.
Our English porcelain of the eighteenth century may be divided roughly into five periods:—
1. The early or primitive period, very often characterised by Chinese, and especially Japanese, schemes of decoration. Oriental wares are closely copied, sometimes perhaps with the object of deception. The paste, containing no bone-ash, is soft and very waxy in appearance. Much of the ground is left unpainted, and there is no gilding. There is a great uncertainty as to the place of manufacture of many of these early pieces.
2. The fine period—approximately 1755 to 1768—especially associated with the name of Sprimont, at Chelsea. The influence of the contemporary production at Sèvres is very marked.
3. The Duesbury period, 1768 to 1786. Simple classical forms are predominant at Chelsea and Derby. The rich decoration previously in use at Chelsea is continued at Worcester, but applied to pieces of simpler outline, the vases often copying Chinese forms.