[200] It is curious to find Venice at this time exporting porcelain to the East, for at an earlier period it was through this town that so much Oriental porcelain and fayence reached Europe.
[201] This Venetian china, either of hard paste or of the hybrid class, must not be confused with the opaque glass, the lattimo, or, more properly, Latisuol, ware, made about 1730 in imitation of porcelain both at Murano, and also near Bassano.
[202] Compare with this the use of steatite, a magnesian rock, from the Lizard, at Worcester, and at other West of England factories. The Chinese have also at times made use of a steatitic rock.
[203] Marryat (p. 451) gives an interesting account of this enterprising man. He was occupied also in the draining of marshes, the improvement of agriculture, and the promotion of commerce.
[204] With this appointment we may perhaps connect the elaborate trophy of white porcelain at South Kensington. The figures of slaves on which this is supported are modelled after those of Tacca on the celebrated monument at Leghorn. This piece is attributed, however, to the Capo di Monte factory.
[205] The word ‘china’ is sometimes used in Spain in the same vague sense as in England, but the name seems only to have come in with the Staffordshire ware so largely imported in the last century. Note, however, that the factory at Buen Retiro was known as La China.
[206] I quote this remarkable passage from Sir A. W. Franks’s paper on the origin of the Chelsea porcelain works (Archæol. Journal, 1862). Marryat misquotes and misinterprets the passage.
[207] One possible exception to this very general statement may be found in a pamphlet quoted by Mr. Solon, Instructions how to make as good china as was ever sold by the East India Company by A. Hill, London, 1716. According to this writer, fragments of Oriental china were to be finely ground and mixed with fluxing and plastic materials to form a paste. Now there is evidence that at a much later date ‘potsherds’ were imported from China, and ground up to form an ingredient of the porcelain, both at Bow and at Worcester.
[208] The memorandum-book of Duesbury, the future porcelain king, begins in 1742. He was then working, on weekly wages, as an ‘enameller’ of china figures. But was the ware that he was decorating at this time a true porcelain?
[209] Mr. Burton says that at the present day the Staffordshire porcelain is composed of bone-ash 6 parts, china-stone 4 parts, and kaolin 3½ parts.