‘To drink is a Christian diversion
Unfit for your Turk or your Persian;
Let Mohammedan fools live by heathenish rules,
And get drunk over tea-cups and coffee,
But let British lads sing, give a rouse for the king,
A fig for your Turk and your Sophi.’
The punch-bowl of porcelain, however, came to the rescue about this time.
[152] In the porcelain gallery at Dresden may be seen (together with one or two small lumps of gold and silver, the results of Böttger’s alchemistic experiments) some snuff-boxes and little flasks of a marbled glass, made by Tschirnhaus at an early date. It is probable that the latter experimenter’s researches lay rather in the way of a frit-made soft paste, on the same lines as the contemporary attempts in France.
[153] And yet, forty years later (so well was the secret kept), it was maintained by practical authorities in France that the Saxon ware was no true porcelain, but only some kind of hard enamel. See Hellot’s Mémoire, quoted below.
[154] We hear, however, of Dutch potters being engaged as early as 1708, and with their assistance Böttger, in 1709, made some imitations of Delft ware.
[155] In a contemporary German pamphlet, which I only know from a French translation (Secret des Vrais Porcelaines de la Chine et de Saxe, Paris, 1752), a certain ‘spath alkalin’ is mentioned as an important element in Saxon porcelain, and this substance is identified with the petuntse of the Père D’Entrecolles.
[156] If this colour is derived from the purple of Cassius, as seems probable, it is an important instance of the early use of this pigment upon porcelain.
[157] Above all the famous ‘Swan Service’ of 1736, Kändler’s masterpiece.
[158] We had in England until lately an unrivalled collection of these little groups—priceless specimens of the best period. They were exhibited by their owner, Mr. Massey Mainwaring, for some time at Bethnal Green. This collection has, however, now found its way to America.
[159] On the other hand, as early as 1732 the Meissen ware was finding its way to the East. Quantities of little coffee-cups (known as Türken Copjen, corrupted into Türken Köpfchen) were sent to Constantinople to be re-exported to other Mohammedan countries.