It is unfortunately true that we can point to no single existing specimen of Italian porcelain that can safely be referred to so early a date; but it must at the same time be remembered that it was only in the year 1857 that the first piece of Medici porcelain was identified by Signor Foresi, and that as late as 1859 a flask-shaped vase of this ware was sold at the Hôtel Drouot as a specimen of Japanese porcelain!
Medici Porcelain.—The first mention of this now well-known ware is probably to be found in Vasari’s Lives of the Painters. It is in his account of Bernardo Buontalenti, painter, sculptor, architect, and mechanical genius, who, in all these capacities,
PLATE XXIX. MEDICI, BLUE AND WHITE
was in great favour with Cosmo, the first Grand-Duke of Tuscany, and still more with his son Francesco. ‘Bernardo,’ says Vasari, who was a contemporary, ‘applies himself to everything, as may be seen by the vases of porcelain which he has made in so short a time—vases which have all the perfection of the most ancient and the most perfect.’ He could make objects of all kinds in porcelain. ‘Of all these things our prince [Francesco the Grand-Duke] possesses the methods of manufacture.’
Francesco Maria, the second Grand-Duke of Tuscany, was neither a good prince nor a faithful husband. He was, however, by nature an enthusiastic and patient experimenter, and a chemist after the manner of the day. Soon after his accession, in 1576, the Venetian envoy writes of him—I abbreviate here and there: ‘He has found the way to make the porcelain of India; he has equalled them in transparence, in lightness, and in delicacy. With the help of a Levantine he worked for more than ten years, spoiling thousands of pieces, before producing perfect work. He passes his whole day in his casino [in the Boboli Gardens] surrounded by alembics and filters, making, among other things, false jewels, and fireworks.’
We learn also, from a contemporary manuscript, that the paste of this porcelain was formed by mixing certain white earths from Siena and from Vicenza with a frit, itself made from pounded rock crystal fused with soda and glassmakers’ sand. The Vicenza clay, at all events, was probably of a kaolinic nature. After shaping on the wheel and drying, the decoration was painted on the raw paste, and the vessel subjected to a preliminary firing; the plumbiferous glaze was then applied to the biscuit. This Medici ware is decorated for the most part with cobalt blue alone, but occasionally a little purple, and still more rarely other colours are added. The design is made up of sprigs of conventionalised flowers and leaves connected by fine stalks, suggesting, on the whole, a Persian rather than a Chinese influence. In a few cases we find the renaissance arabesques (or, more properly, grotesques) of the time combined with masks in relief. The usual mark is a hasty outline of the dome of the Cathedral of Florence, and below it the letter F; on a few pieces, those especially which are decorated with the grotesques, we find the six roundels, or ‘palle,’ of the Medici, surmounted by the ducal coronet. A few pieces are dated. The earliest date that has been discovered—1581—is on a bottle of square section, rudely painted, under a crackle glaze, with the arms of Spain.
As might be expected in the case of an experimental ware of amateurish origin, the extant pieces differ much in technical merit. Some are heavily moulded, with a rough decoration of dark blue (I refer to some pieces now in the Louvre); while on others, as on the fine but damaged bowl at South Kensington, a delicate design is carefully painted ([Pl. xxx].). The ground, however, of this Medici porcelain is seldom of a pure white, and the colours have a tendency to run. Now that the specimens from the Davillier and Rothschild collections have found their way into the Louvre, this ware is best represented in that gallery. There are, however, several pieces at Sèvres, and some good examples at South Kensington. The later history of this ware is obscure. The kilns appear to have been removed to Pisa, and their existence cannot be traced later than 1620.
Rouen Porcelain.—For a period of two generations and more after this date it would seem that little was attempted. The vague assertions found in patents taken out during this time in England and in France are of slight value for us, for the claim is only made to an imitation of the Eastern ware, and such an expression might apply to many kinds of enamelled fayence.