CHAPTER IV

FIGURE SUBJECTS
AND GROUPS
(1780-1820)

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CHAPTER IV

FIGURE SUBJECTS AND GROUPS
(1780-1820)

The inauguration of new impulses, 1780—Luplau, the modelling-master—The figure subjects of Kalleberg—Classification of figure subjects—Old Copenhagen figures, their national character—The last days of Müller.

Apart from the royal busts and statuettes, the sumptuous vases with portraits of royalties, and the magnificent services made for royal use or for some important personage, culminating in the great and extensive Flora Danica service, there were other examples, notably figure subjects and groups, often of a minor character, and vases and services of less splendour in their decoration but not of inferior character.

The date of these may be determined as subsequent to the year 1780, when a retail establishment was opened in Copenhagen in the heyday of Müller's triumph, for the sale of the factory productions. An outburst of popular feeling hailed this adventure with delight. The chronicles of the time are full of the subject. Hitherto great and important pieces were made under the Court patronage of Queen Juliane Marie and of Prince Frederik, her son, and important subjects were executed, giving to this period a character and dignity not surpassed by many of the older factories. But the royal factory now became the national factory. Henceforth merchants, burghers, the professional classes, and the Danish public in general were enabled to see a permanent exhibition of the ware of the Royal Porcelain Factory, and to purchase or give orders for a national ware which, naturally, was supplanting the use of all others in the country. In the year 1790 the importation of any foreign porcelain save Chinese was prohibited by law.

From 1780 to 1790 one may expect to find the factory in full enjoyment of success, particularly in regard to its manufacture and sale of utilitarian blue fluted services, underglaze painted, and of small figures and vases, overglaze painted, of a less magnificent character, designed for use and ornament in the home rather than representative of types more fitted for presents to foreign princes and plenipotentiaries. In 1790 Müller was fifty-eight years of age. In 1801 he had retired from the factory.

This chapter, while including important figures and groups, deals with types of a class which may be termed as in the second flight of Müller's artistic triumphs, and be it said much of the work is contemporary with more ambitious creations equal in character to some of the finest.

As many of these minor pieces are dated and others have the signature of the artist or modeller, it is possible to arrive, with some degree of accuracy, at the period of their manufacture. Contemporary with all these overglaze painted examples of the factory one must not lose sight of the fact that the mussel-blue underglaze painted ware was continuously being made. New forms were being added, and its decoration with the "Danish pattern" adhered closely to the original floral motif now perennial to the ware.

Luplau, the Modelling Master.—In regarding the figure subjects, it must be borne in mind that the foreign assistance which Müller called in at the inception of the factory had not a little influence on the early and sure production of figures which could not have been attempted without experienced supervision. Under Anton Carl Luplau, the modelling-master who came to Copenhagen from the Fürstenberg factory, where he had spent eighteen years, the early stages of the Copenhagen modelling show a completer mastery of the technique than is usually exhibited by so young a factory.

But design and modelling, excellent though they undoubtedly were in the hands of Luplau, were only factors in the problem towards perfected results. The body, the glaze, and the colours were Müller's. Nor is it to be supposed that Luplau contributed more than the idea, practical without doubt, but it is improbable that he carried his supervision beyond the plastic stages. All credit is due to him for instilling the principles of fine lines and graceful forms into the minds of the young potters. But it was Müller by day and by night, with long vigils, often all night, at the ovens with his workmen whom he was training to control the caprice of the furnace, who seized the situation and gladly profited by experience in his uphill struggle to establish his factory in the face of all difficulties. Müller had the genius of "moulding men in plastic circumstance." Nor was Luplau the swan he is sometimes thought to have been. There is a suggestion in one of Müller's letters to the board of management of the factory which illuminates the inner history. Speaking of Luplau, and probably the old story—the cost of production—he says: "On the contrary, he demands extra payment for any work which he does himself, and as the factory cannot afford this, most of the figures and moulds are made by Kalleberg, and in this work Luplau appears to take a very small share."

The Figure Subjects of Kalleberg.—The fertility of the early Copenhagen period when masterpieces, full of charm and perfect in style, rapidly appeared one after another in a short but crowded period, has puzzled students of the old period. To accept Luplau as the creator of them all, is to believe him classic and precise, and at the same moment capable of transforming his style into elegant, restrained creations of gaiety and fanciful forms in due subjection. To omit the subtle and critical examination of style is to fall into the pit which contains those curious mortals who believe the exact, terse, and laboured prose of Bacon to be by the author of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Hamlet. To such, it is possible to credit Julius Cæsar with having written the ode of Horatius Flaccus to Lyde.

There is some mystery as to the designer of the dancing figures, the flute-player, the lady at the tea-table, the Copenhagen group, the Norwegian dalemen in Fredensborg, the mountain-men, and certain dainty Cupids. They differ entirely from Laplau's productions in every respect, and stand far above them in artistic merit. The late Professor Krohn, whose patient researches, on this and other vexed questions concerning old Copenhagen porcelain, were unfortunately broken off by his untimely death, was of the opinion that these figure subjects were the work of the repoussé worker Kalleberg. Authentic confirmation is lacking, other than the letter above quoted. Until further evidence is forthcoming and further investigations are made into the Müller period, we must accept the authentic pronouncement by Müller as the last word on the subject.

In regard to the employment of foreigners, it is certain that the experiment was not a success. Five workmen were inveigled from Meissen in 1776. Out of the five, probably induced by monetary considerations to quit the Meissen factory, two did not make an appearance in Copenhagen. Of the three who came, it seems that only one showed any great talent. It would appear, too, that they exhibited an arrogance that stirred up strife in the factory. They received higher wages than the Danish workmen and began to assume correspondingly superior manners, with the belief that the factory could not proceed without them. But Müller speedily put an end to this state of affairs by closing the factory gates against them, and when they attempted to break in, he had them turned out by force. With these experiences in mind, it is not surprising that when, at a later date, some English workmen from the Wedgwood factory desired employment, they received scanty consideration.

Classification of Figure Subjects.—The figure subjects under examination in this chapter may be divided into the following groups:—

• Portrait Busts and Statuettes and Classic figures, in biscuit—
• such as those of Queen Juliane Marie and the Hereditary Prince Frederik, and the statuette of A Hero at the National Museum, Stockholm (illustrated, p. 115)
• Ornamental subjects, in white—
• such as the centre-piece with the supporting Cupids at the Dansk Folke Museum, Copenhagen, and the remarkably fine vases, 4 feet high, at Frederiksborg, having powerfully modelled groups of female classic figures.
• Classic figures and subjects, decorated in colours, overglaze—
• such as the group Flora and Minerva by Jacob Schmidt and Sea Horses at the National Museum, Stockholm (illustrated, p. 119).
• Romantic subjects in costume, decorated in colours, overglaze—
• such as Lovers with Cupid and Garlands (illustrated, p. 123), and small figures of women and children in fanciful costume.
• There is at Frederiksborg Castle a group—Chinese Woman and Chinaman, who is offering her a basket of fruit. This Oriental subject is very rare. Marked with three lines underglaze in blue, but the yellow overglaze pigment on base has turned the blue into three green lines.
• Figure subjects in correct contemporary costume—practically a ceramic gallery faithfully reflecting the social character of the period—
• such as the Flute Player, the Lady and Gentleman dancing, the Beggar, and an especially fine series of peasant types in old costume, engaged at their various vocations—e.g. two groups of Norwegian Miners, with black costume and green caps, with C7 in gold (at Frederiksborg Castle). The Woman with Hens, in Norwegian costume, a Market Woman with Fowls, a Lobster-seller, Woman selling Fruit, Woman milking Cow. Figures in naval and military uniform, and many others.

Old Copenhagen Figures—their National Character.—In regard to the series of figures in contemporary costume, there is an air about them which stamps them at once as being the work of the old Copenhagen factory. They are practically portrait studies, with that added touch of poetic charm which fits them for their place among the gods of the china cabinet.

They challenge comparison with the work of other European factories. Kändler, the modeller at Meissen, in what is styled the Krinolinengruppen period in mid eighteenth-century days, produced figures of lovers and ladies in rich costumes. They belong to that impossible world of the china-shelf, of shepherds and shepherdesses and bending cavaliers and gay ladies, conjured up in the fertile brain of the potter. They invaded France and they conquered England in the glorious days of Derby and Chelsea. But with a few notable exceptions they did not penetrate to Copenhagen.

The groups of Lovers with Cupids and chains of roses are two examples of this romantic movement which came into the world of ceramics, a reflex of the decorative art of fashionable Court painters, who invented a topsy-turvy world of make-believe.

The quiet strength and the subdued restraint of the old Copenhagen figures stand out in contrast to this outburst of fanciful exuberance. The note of fidelity is as apparent in the figures in costume of the Müller period as it is noticeable in regard to floral decorations and modelled foliage taken direct from nature. Nor does this betray a want of imagination or a lack of ideality in choice of figure subjects. If it be classic, there is poetry in the statuette of A Hero, or a loose rein is given by the modeller to his Sea Horses, a poet's vision of the sea rollers leaping shore-wards from the Baltic. The fashion for the romantic did eventually tinge the Copenhagen atelier. Some of the little figures are graceful, retiring, modest examples of the movement. It is true they are decked in impossible costumes, but the mode has in the transplantation acquired simplicity and reticence. Some of them suggest, in porcelain, the quaint charm of Kate Greenaway's world of picturesque children.

Of the gallery of contemporary life the Copenhagen figures, in the main, are faithful likenesses. The dancing cavalier and lady (see Frontispiece) represent persons who actually did dance as they are modelled. There is nothing added except that touch of the modeller's genius in catching the rhythmical pose of the poetry of motion which crystallizes them as a work of art. The Flute Player is equally caught in the act, natural and unobtrusive. There is nothing affected in his attitude or in his costume (illustrated, p. 127). It is such traits as these which endear the old Copenhagen figures to connoisseurs. The glaze is rich and liquid and the colours are subdued in tone and appeal to lovers of subtlety in art. Whatever extraneous influences in art press upon the work of the Danish potters, there is a process of refining which they seemingly undergo, and in so doing

Suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange.

As may be imagined, these old-world figures are much treasured by Danish collectors, who realize that they represent a national phase of art and form a record of quaint and forgotten costume. The sellers in the market-place, the women with fowls, the fisherman with the striped jersey and shiny hat familiar in old prints of our own sailormen, and the Admiral with his speaking trumpet—it might be the great Fischer himself, of the days when fleets were sweeping the North Sea and the Baltic—come with peculiar associations from bygone days.

The Last Days of Müller.—The illustrations herein given cover this diverse field and serve to indicate the versatility of the modellers who worked during the Müller period. The peasant types and some of the smaller figures belong to the latter days of the Müller régime. Although Müller retired from the factory in 1801, he kept in touch with what was in progress. His hand may not have been on the helm, but he had spirit enough left in his retirement to burst forth with pungent criticisms upon the later methods pursued, and there is no doubt the old veteran was frequently consulted by those upon whom his mantle had fallen. The fiery spirit of Müller, proof against all adversity, with the eye of the eagle saw across a longer space than men of ordinary vision. "Everything which has been done after I left the factory," growls out the fiery old man, "has been to its detriment." And who shall say that his words were not true?

Müller had heard the guns booming in the Sound in 1801, he had seen the havoc of bombardment by an alien fleet in 1807. His heart's desire, his beloved factory, had been wrecked. A great man's treasure-house of dreams had been devastated. The story of the ruin which overtook the factory comes with stunning poignancy with the knowledge that owing to the misery which followed the war the factory actually closed down in 1810, for a time, owing to the want of fuel. Years after the death of Müller and the glories of his day had departed, a number of his oldest models and moulds were found in a heap of shards stowed away in a loft in the old factory. At the removal to the new factory at Frederiksberg it was hardly thought worth while to carry them away.

Fortunately, this was done, and in spite of their wrecked condition, loving hands have pieced them together. It is now happily possible to reproduce faithfully some two hundred of the beautiful models of the great days.

Frantz Heinrich Müller, the greatest potter of Denmark, is not dead, although his ashes have lain in a nameless grave for nearly a century. His memory still lies green in the hearts of those who love great things finely conceived, great triumphs nobly won, and great dreams perfectly consummated.

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CHAPTER V

THE FLORA DANICA SERVICE
(1790-1802)

MADE FOR CATHERINE II,
EMPRESS OF RUSSIA

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CHAPTER V

THE FLORA DANICA SERVICE
(1790-1802)

MADE FOR CATHERINE II, EMPRESS OF RUSSIA

The Crown Prince Frederik (afterwards Frederik VI) orders the Flora Danica service to be made—A period of twelve years occupied in making it—The taste of the Empress Catherine II of Russia—Theodor Holmskjold, the botanist—The service.

A separate chapter is devoted to the great service executed by the Royal Copenhagen Factory during the years 1790 to 1802. It takes a place with other great services, the masterpieces of old and distinguished factories, such as the magnificent table service of pâte tendre Sèvres porcelain finished in 1778 for the Empress Catherine II of Russia, consisting of about 750 pieces and costing some £13,200. The Empress, it is interesting to read, considered this price exorbitant, and a lengthy diplomatic correspondence ensued. This service was part of the imperial collection at St. Petersburg. The celebrated Wedgwood dinner service of earthenware made for Catherine II and delivered in 1774, consists of painted English scenery, depicting famous views and noblemen's seats. This comprised over 950 pieces, and a portion of it was exhibited in London in 1909 by Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, of Etruria, by permission of late His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Russia.[7]

The Flora Danica service had as a patron the Crown Prince Frederik, the son of Christian VII and Queen Caroline Matilda. In 1784 another palace revolution had happened. The power of Queen Juliane Marie and her son, the king's brother, was broken. Prince Frederik (afterwards Frederik VI on the death of his father Christian VII, at the age of fifty-nine, in 1808) assumed the presidency of the State Council, after an unseemly struggle for the person of the imbecile king had taken place between him and his uncle Frederik, Prince Hereditary, resulting in the complete rout of the latter. The same day, April 14, 1784, the Crown Prince Frederik was proclaimed Regent. From that moment the rule of the Queen Dowager and her son Frederik was ended. She and her son retained their apartments at Christiansborg Palace, and Fredensborg was set apart for the use of Queen Juliane Marie. She lived in retirement until her death in 1796. Her son Frederik refrained from meddling in State affairs, and confined his attention to the welfare of art and science.

Frederik VI, endeared to his people more than any other Danish king, in spite of his military brusqueness, was as simple and frugal as our own Farmer-King, George III, whose grandson he was. Frederik's blue cotton umbrella is still exhibited as a relic in his apartments in Rosenborg Castle, and at his death, in 1830, all classes mourned the loss of a friend. Peasants bore the coffin of the old monarch tenderly to his last resting-place at Roskilde.

He was twenty years of age when Count Marshal Bülow, with a fatherly regard for the Crown Prince, and desirous of giving that touch of refinement denied the youth by the naturalistic theories of Struensee and the sterner methods of the Queen Dowager, took him from his military duties to pay early morning visits to the Royal factory. These glimpses into a world of artistry cannot have been other than stimulating to the young prince. Struensee's Rousseau-like training had made him a child of nature, and Juliane Marie had twisted him into the cast-iron grooves of a stiff and formal Court etiquette. In regard to art, he came at a time when the love of nature was becoming paramount. The age was rapidly shaking off the artificial. Sated with rococo ornament and with insipid and frivolous unrealities, the pendulum swung to the natural and to the essentially simple. Straight or shapely curved lines became the fashion. The period of Louis Seize had succeeded the rococo taste of Louis Quinze in Continental art.

The Taste of the Empress Catherine of Russia.—From 1784, when he made his coup d'état, Frederik advisedly gave important orders to the royal factory. In 1790 the Flora Danica service was ordered by the Crown Prince. It was not at first known for whom it was intended. The old factory books record it as "Perle model broge malet med Flora Danica" (Pearl body, colour painted with Flora Danica). As the service progressed it transpired that it was to be presented to Catherine II, Empress of Russia. The modern spirit was in the air, the new style was realistic and tinged with a scientific motif; moreover, it was to be a gift to a bluestocking. The Empress Catherine essayed to make her Court the centre of letters and art. At great cost she purchased the library of Diderot, and invited him to come to St. Petersburg to be the custodian of his own collection. She corresponded with Voltaire and she talked philosophy with Grimm, who, in his celebrated Correspondance Littéraire, kept her informed of the latest plays and books appearing in Paris. She established a French theatre in St. Petersburg, and fined absentee courtiers fifty roubles and sent her guards to bring in those who had failed to attend. French visionaries looked to Russia as a land of promise. Voltaire never tired of proclaiming that the Mohammedans should be driven out of Europe. And the Empress Catherine was to be the chosen instrument. The philosopher of Ferney, with his pen dipped in honey, writes:—

"Si vous étiez souveraine de Constantinople votre majesté établirait bien vite une belle académie grecque; on vous ferait une Catériniade; les Zeuxis et les Phidias couvriraient la terre de vos images; la chute de l'empire ottoman serait célébrée en grec; Athènes serait une de vos capitales; la langue grecque deviendrait la langue universelle; tous les negocians de la mer Egée demanderaient des passeports de votre majesté."

The great Danish service was therefore to be a fitting present for so powerful a queen. For some twelve years the work was continued uninterruptedly. At first it was designed for eighty persons, and in 1794 no less than 1,835 pieces were ready. The death of the Empress Catherine II in 1796 precluded the service joining those of Sèvres and Wedgwood in the imperial palace at St. Petersburg. But its manufacture was still continued. In 1797 it had enlarged its dimensions, and was fit for a hundred persons. In 1802 it was stopped. If counted in English fashion, with lid, bowl, and stand as three pieces, the number had grown to three thousand pieces, or some two thousand, counting such vessels as one piece. The dessert service alone amounted to six hundred and twenty-three pieces, consisting of basket vases, flower and fruit stands, and, as is usual in dessert services, exceptionally fine examples, elegant, finely modelled, and exquisitely painted.

The date of the completion of the Flora Danica service practically coincides with the date of the retirement of Müller from the directorship of the factory, and therefore with this service ends the great and prolific Müller period.

In the examination of the Flora Danica service considerable attention has been paid to the artistic and decorative results, but insufficient study has been given to the causes which led to the inception of so scientific an idea in regard to the record of the national flora on a service of such importance.

Theodor Holmskjold, the Botanist.—The patron, as we have seen, was the Crown Prince Frederik. The artist entrusted with the painting of the work was A. C. Baÿer, but the guiding spirit of the enterprise undoubtedly was Theodor Holmskjold, who was a botanist of some distinction, had studied under the world-renowned Von Linné at Upsala, and was his favourite pupil. Holmskjold, a director of the factory throughout the great Juliane Marie period, and almost to the end of Müller's long control, brought the scientific spirit of exactitude into the field of decorative art. Originally by name Holm, he took, after his ennoblement in 1781, the title of Holmskjold. He was professor of medicine and natural history at Söroe, the Danish Eton, where he planned a botanical garden, and later he took part in the management of the Botanical Gardens at Copenhagen. His work on Danish Fungi is distinguished by the artistic excellence of the illustrations, which were made by Baÿer. In 1767 he became postmaster-general of Copenhagen. In 1772, the year of the masked ball at Christiansborg, we find him cabinet secretary to Queen Juliane Marie. Undoubtedly at that time the man of science put aside his dried specimens to join in the whirl of politics and Court intrigue which ended in the seizure of Struensee and Queen Matilda—the gallows-tree for the dictator and imprisonment for Denmark's young queen. The classification of fungi was seemingly little enough preparation for the pinking of Court butterflies, when plots of assassination were rife, and when the actors' heads were not secure on their shoulders. But Holmskjold, together with another student, Suhm, the historian, who came from his library and helped to make history, ably acquitted himself. He was a trusted confidant of Queen Juliane Marie. It was he who induced the queen to take up Müller's company, and himself (then Holm) became one of the directors.

Long after Queen Juliane Marie's power had waned, we find him true to his allegiance to her, as in 1792 he became chamberlain to her Court. His connection with Müller was intimate. A widower in 1780, Müller married Holm's somewhat elderly sister. In brother-in-law Holm Müller found a good patron. His position at the Court, his relationship with Müller, his intense desire to win renown for an enterprise to which he had himself obtained the royal appellation, made him at once a powerful and interested ally. He died in 1793, before the final completion of the great service to which his influence had contributed so much, but not before he had seen the establishment of the Royal Copenhagen porcelain under the régime of Queen Juliane Marie, his mistress, attain great eminence and distinction.

It is impossible to ignore Holmskjold's special and particular influence on the character of the decorations of the great Copenhagen Catherine II service. The personality of the botanist-director is here evident. But apart from this individual influence, in an examination of the causes likely to have contributed to the style of decoration employed, passing mention must be made of the great national enterprise planned by Oeder in 1761: the original idea being that all European Governments should contribute to a series of volumes illustrating the complete flora of Europe. By this scientific co-operation duplication was thus to be avoided, and each plant would be described once only.

Denmark alone took sufficient interest in the botanical work to complete it. Austria touched the fringe of her flora with five hundred illustrations, and Russia contributed a hundred. So the Flora Danica, under the guidance of several generations of botanists, ploughed its solitary furrow alone. The first volume, containing the first three parts, was issued by Oeder in 1766. The plants were painted in situ by zealous artist-botanists who travelled to the remote districts of Denmark. This magnificent undertaking was in its earliest stages when the great porcelain service was in contemplation.

It is interesting here to note the further history of the great botanical work. Five parts were issued by O. F. Müller from 1775 to 1787. Vahl, the great botanist, who died in 1804, followed on by another five parts, and the next seventeen parts, extending over a period of thirty-five years, were under the editorship of J. W. Horniman, who published a history of the progress of the work from its inception down to 1836. By royal decree in 1847 it was decided to accept illustrations of Swedish and Norwegian plants not found in Denmark, thus increasing the scope and value of the work. It was to be completed in fifty-one parts, and not until the year 1883 was this great botanical work of the Flora Danica pronounced finished!

It will thus be seen that, apart from Holmskjold's special and particular predilections, there were general and national impulses directed towards this work of exceptional character and of European importance. It may readily be imagined that, prior to the advent of the Flora Danica service, the artists at the royal factory who painted flowers had, under the vigilant eye of the specialist director, to paint them from nature. A convolvulus did not become so decoratively treated as to evade identification. The Greek honeysuckle pattern of conventional use would not have passed at Copenhagen. Conventionality was as much eschewed in decoration as was the rococo in modelling. It is thus evident that nature and nature study, so remarkable and beautiful a feature in Copenhagen porcelain, owes not a little to the trained scientific vision of Theodor Holmskjold, the botanist.

Other factors enter into the question of the consideration of this Flora Danica service. It is obvious that the national feeling in artistic and scientific circles was centred on nature and nature study. Jean-Jacques had shown mankind that Dame Nature was capable of being wooed with intense passion. It was not until the late eighteenth century that the beauties of landscape began to be assiduously sought after. Travellers crossed the Alps from one country to another and regarded the frowning mountain, the sombre pass, or the rushing torrent much in the same manner as the unpoetic mariner feared the hurricane. Nature in her majestic loneliness was appalling. The sunny slopes of the Apennines concealed volcanic terrors. The smile of the blue Lake of Como was as treacherous as the dancing waves of the fickle sea itself. Lakes and mountains and mountain gorges were to be avoided; no mortal had conceived the idea of discovering their beauty. They were as fearsome as the Pillars of Hercules to the Latin mariners.

In England, Thomas Gray, the poet, made a journey into Westmoreland and Cumberland in 1765 to see the Lake Country. His letters are the first note in English literature of man's kinship with nature. It took a century for the modern thought to germinate—"great men are part of the infinite, brothers of the mountain and the sea." As early as 1739, Gray's letters to his mother are filled with passages extolling the grandeur of the crags and precipices of the Alps, at a time when Rousseau had not developed his later method, and Vernet had only commenced to paint the turbulent sea with ecstasy.

In Denmark, in 1790, when the first model of the Flora Danica service was turned on the potter's wheel, this inquiring and reflective spirit was in the air, and the general tendency manifestly found a reflex in the great national service being manufactured at the Royal Porcelain Factory. The Russian Government had already entered into co-operation in a small degree in regard to bringing the records of the Russian flora into line with that of Denmark, and Catherine II, as is known, was the patron of the German naturalist Dr. P. S. Pallas, who, in 1784, commenced a Flora Russica, which was to eclipse anything yet attempted. This was to be published at the expense of Catherine. At her wish Pallas had in 1768 undertaken a scientific expedition to Siberia, which occupied six years.

In this connection, therefore, and knowing the Empress Catherine to be a votary of science and of art, the services made in England, France, and Denmark for imperial use were not undertaken without due consideration of this fact. The Sèvres service was embellished with the art of the schools of Boucher, Lancret, and Watteau; the Wedgwood service was frankly topographical, having painted copies, in mulberry purple, of old engravings, and Copenhagen was designedly botanical, based on the coloured illustrations of the Flora Danica volumes.

The Service.—A notable visitor to the factory at the time of the inception of the Flora Danica service was the Chevalier Louis de Boisgelin, Knight of Malta, who published his Travels through Denmark and Sweden in English in two volumes, at London, in 1810. The Comte Alfonse de Fortia, his fellow-traveller, had previously published Les Voyages de deux François dans le Nord de l'Europe. As a trustworthy account of a contemporary eye-witness the opinion of de Boisgelin is quoted:—

"The most beautiful porcelain likely to be sent for a long time from this manufacture will be a complete service upon which is to be represented, in natural colours, all the plants of the Flora Danica, with one upon each piece, large or small, according to the dimensions of the piece. The name of the plant will be marked under the plate, and the whole is to be classed according to the Linnæan system. The drawings are traced with such wonderful accuracy, that the most famous painters belonging to the manufactory would not undertake so difficult and slavish a piece of work."

This last statement as to the mechanical accuracy required in the painting of the flora stamps it as something outside the realm of the ordinary flower painter, and indicates at once the extreme scientific definition of drawing required.

The Royal Copenhagen Factory had come to be recognized by other Continental factories as excelling in the modelling of flowers, and as exhibiting truthful and natural beauty in their employment for decorative effect. The originality of the shapes of this service in comparison with those of contemporary factories shows them to possess a fine reticence which does not detract from the grand and imposing character of the imperial service. The border is a new and bold treatment with serrated leaf design, richly gilded and having three rows of gilt pearls. In point of decoration the new style is realistic, but far too scientific in treatment.

As a service it is magnificent. It amply fulfils the great and inspired conceptions of its originators. Luplau was still a modeller, skilful and practised in his own field of dignified, restrained, and well-balanced forms compelling admiration, and the bouquets and floral ornaments were modelled by Sören Preus. In painted decoration the scientific atmosphere is only too evident. Baÿer's pencil too faithfully followed the botanical volumes of the Flora Danica. Each piece is different; the whole gamut of the flora was covered, but each subject was obviously not equally suitable for decorative effect. True decorative art, however realistic, is alien from scientific exactitude.

The plants with their roots, leaves, and cross-sections of the stems evade decorative treatment. The scientific spirit is further exhibited in the written Latin names and references to the text of Flora Danica appearing at the back of each piece. But it must be reiterated that it was intended as a present to a votary of Von Linné, and the scientific study of nature had challenged the capture of nature by art.

The magnificence of the great service is the magnificence of a great series of ceramic volumes, reflecting in another medium the triumphs of the illustrated volumes of the Flora Danica.

It is the first instance of the Copenhagen factory searching for designs in a domain foreign to the true natural sources of inspiration proper to the artist designer on porcelain. Another and later instance is the series of imitative porcelain statuettes after Thorvaldsen's creations in marble.

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CHAPTER VI

EARLY BLUE-AND-WHITE
UNDERGLAZE PAINTED

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CHAPTER VI

EARLY BLUE-AND-WHITE UNDERGLAZE PAINTED

The "Danish Pattern"—The Bornholm Clay period—Peculiarities in marking—Table of Marks (old blue-and-white underglaze painted porcelain).

The blue-and-white underglaze painted porcelain of Copenhagen has become recognized as characteristic of the royal factory and of Denmark. The original design is of Chinese origin, in common with other forms of decoration, centuries old, followed by all European potters in early days when the art of making true porcelain was discovered in the West. But, like many another transplantation in art, it found congenial atmosphere, and has become national to the country of its adoption. The light, graceful plant motif shown in the blue-and-white painted fluted porcelain is as welcome a sight to Danes the world over as the slender twin spires of Roskilde Cathedral, where the kings of Denmark sleep in eternal peace.

The "Danish pattern" bears in a measure a certain relationship to works in literature where the translation is greater than the original.

This is especially true when the work of a decadent period is translated into the richer tongue of a more golden age. The English Bible translated in the time of James I is richer in its fine wealth of prose than the "original sacred tongues."

Some arts have been lost. It is said that the art of translation has never been discovered. All have laboured after it in vain; it is as hard to seek as hidden treasure, and one never finds it. But the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory found the "hidden treasure" in the design which has grown into a thousand shapes inspired by the traditions of Müller, who "laid the East in fee," and whose successors true to his memory are not those

Who would keep an ancient form
Through which the spirit breathes no more.

From the manor farms of Vendsyssel to the confines of Danish-built Altona, from the white cliffs of Möen to the ancient roofed city of Ribe, the blue-and-white underglaze painted porcelain plates and dishes have been family heirlooms since the days of Christian VII.

The Flora Danica service represents the greatest complete creation in the overglaze painted work of the royal factory, and this blue-and-white stands as the greatest and most complete creation of the underglaze work.

It has been advanced, and on sure grounds, that this Copenhagen blue-and-white porcelain, with its continuity of national design extending in unbroken line for over a century and a quarter, is the largest service the world has seen. It has grown by steady process of evolution into thousands of well-defined forms, rich in inventive modelling, and keeping abreast with modern requirements, and it is to this day decorated with the old pattern of the early days. This of itself is an achievement not equalled by any other factory. A Copenhagen breakfast set of the twentieth century or a tête-à-tête tea service can stand beside eighteenth-century blue-and-white porcelain from the same factory, and be in perfect harmony in colour, in decoration, and in character.

Kindred and allied by birth,
And made of the same clay.

The "Danish pattern" in blue was not long in attracting copyists from other European factories. To-day in Copenhagen itself English faience transfer-printed in blue stands as a trade imitation and a tribute to the genius and originality of its prototype. Possibly the potter plagiarists may never have heard of the pregnant words of Goethe: "There are many echoes, but few voices."

The Bornholm Clay Period.—Mention has already been made, in dealing with the early discoveries of Müller and the experiments he made, of the clay which he found in the island of Bornholm. This clay forms the body of some of the earliest-known pieces made by him. It may be readily recognized by its heavy weight and by its grey tone. It is easy, after making an examination of a great number of specimens of the old blue-and-white ware, to distinguish this Bornholm period, even although in the two years (1773-1775) prior to the adoption of the three blue lines as a factory mark, some pieces bear no mark whatever. It somewhat resembles certain heavy Japanese ware in its compact and solid body and grey-blue colour.

The author has made a fairly exhaustive test of several hundred pieces, both in public and in private collections. The gradual development in regard to the perfection of the paste and the glaze is so noticeable that it is possible to place the old blue-and-white fluted ware in successive grades according to the stages of evolution. At first coarse, though never meaningless nor offensive, when the ware was obviously in an experimental period, it betrayed fire-cracks and warpings in form and slight departures from perfect symmetry. Later it became whiter and thinner, and was manifestly more completely under the control of the potter. When the perfected period was reached, there were tea caddies, pounce boxes, and, in particular, certain dishes, of which an example is illustrated (p. 169) which are not unworthy to be compared favourably with specimens of old blue-and-white Worcester of the early period. There is a delicacy and refinement in the modelling and potting, and that tenderness in the glaze and thinness in the body which at once betoken that the technique has been subjected to the patient potter's control.

Peculiarities in Marking.—For the first time in any treatment of the subject, the potters and modellers' marks are given in a table appended to this chapter, which the writer hopes will be found useful in identifying early examples. These hieroglyphics, usually accompanied by the factory mark of the three blue lines, are painters' marks, and in the case of incised marks are representative of the modellers or turners. It may be possible, upon further research being given to the subject, to identify the individual marks of each painter or modeller, and thus arrive at some more definite conclusion in regard to the date at which these early blue-and-white pieces were made. But until the exact list of painters at the factory, together with the dates at which they were employed, is subjected to exhaustive research, it is obviously impossible to establish more than the present series of marks, with limited conclusions in regard to chronological order. The marks now given have been specially drawn from old examples of undoubted authenticity.

There is one peculiarity in connection with the marks found on this early blue-and-white porcelain. The bases are frequently ground, and the factory mark of the three blue lines, with an accompanying painter's mark, are on the base, with little spots of glaze put over them no bigger than a threepenny-piece. Another idiosyncrasy of Copenhagen marks, not confined to the blue-and-white, is the almost hidden position in which some of the marks are found. In overglaze painted figures the three blue lines will peep from beneath the hem of some garment. In the blue-and-white examples the mark is sometimes found on the inside of the handle of a teapot or on a lid. In some of the earlier pieces the blue mark has turned to black under the action of the oven. Similarly, in the early days of experiments in connection with the perfecting of the blue, a series of plates will be found of exactly the same decoration and bearing the same painter's signature; but the caprice of the fire, or the inexact knowledge of the craftsman, has converted the blue of some of them into a very deep blue, approaching black in tone.

There is no doubt that the old blue-and-white porcelain of Copenhagen has not yet been exploited by collectors. It came concurrently with the rich overglaze painting in colours and the magnificence of gilding for which the Müller period is remarkable. It stands quite apart; its decoration is underglaze, and not at that time, nor since, has gold ever been added to this mussel-blue painted and fluted utilitarian ware other than in very exceptional circumstances. It is simple and delightful, and what it was in the old days it is now. The style of painted decoration is perennial. It is a pattern known all over the world. It has lived for a hundred and thirty-six years. Its life-history suggests the long-continued idealities of the Chinese potter or the coloured intricacies of the Persian rug-weaver continued by the wise children of clever craftsmen with equal fidelity from generation to generation.

TABLE OF MARKS

(Old Blue-and-white Porcelain Underglaze Painted)

of Painters and Modellers, found usually in conjunction with the Factory Mark of the three blue lines. Painter's mark in blue. Modeller's mark incised.

Mark found on examples of the Bornholm clay period, see Apothecary Jar (illustrated, p. 161).