The Florentine experiments and the Pisa bowls remain as solitary relics in the story of European porcelain until the year 1673, when the scene is shifted to France. At this date a privilege was granted for making porcelain to Edme Poterat, of St. Sever, a suburb of Rouen, in the name of his son Louis. Since 1644 he had been working as a faïencier as lessee of the Sieur Poirel de Grandval, huissier de cabinet to Anne of Austria; the Sieur Poirel had been granted an exclusive licence for making faïence in the province of Normandy. The manufacture of porcelain at Rouen was not continued for long after the death of Poterat in 1694, in consequence of a dispute between his sons, which resulted in their privilege being withdrawn. The nature of this earliest French porcelain is established by a few pieces, which there are sufficient grounds for supposing to be authentic. One of these is at South Kensington, a tall cup finely fashioned in a paste of bluish tone and carefully painted in a strong underglaze blue; the design consists of small vases of flowers amid formal lambrequin ornament below a castellated border.

A point of special interest in connection with the earliest French experiments is that, while the efforts of their authors were consciously directed at the emulation of Oriental porcelain, the style of decoration adopted by them was thoroughly French, showing hardly any trace of Chinese influence. The surviving Rouen specimens are closely similar in their ornament to the faïence produced by the factory in which they were made. The same is true of the porcelain manufactured, for the first time in Europe on a commercial scale, at St. Cloud, near Paris. This factory was started by a Rouen potter named Pierre Chicaneau for the making of earthenware. As the result of experiments made shortly before his death, Chicaneau could boast of producing objects in porcelain “presqu’aussi parfait que les porcelaines de la Chine et des Indes.” His widow and family continued the work he had begun, and in 1702 were granted letters patent by Louis XIV.; the factory was subsequently carried on by Henri Trou, second husband of Chicaneau’s widow. The jar reproduced in Plate 12 illustrates admirably the style in vogue at the St. Cloud works. Formal devices adapted from Rouen faïence and inspired by the designs of Bérain, are symmetrically disposed as borders, leaving a large part of the surface free, so as to display to full advantage the soft tone of the glaze. The sense of fitness and proportion never absent from the best French work asserts itself as much in the painted ornament as in the rich ormolu mount with which the jar is embellished. The legs of console outline and the rayed masks between them are typical forms of the art of Louis XIV.’s reign; instinct as they are with sober dignity, they are saved from stiffness of effect by the contrast of the band of running foliage engraved on the collar round the top of the jar.

Painting in blue under the glaze was the predominant manner of decoration at St. Cloud. In other cases the porcelain is left white, and only moulded ornaments are used; these are either copied directly from the Chinese Fuchien porcelain,—here at last Oriental motives appear,—or they exhibit a hybrid mingling of classical and Chinese forms. The latter type is seen in a fine soup-tureen in the Fitzhenry gift at South Kensington; it is moulded with pseudo-Oriental cranes and foliage in relief above a gadrooned border, and has grotesque mask handles and a knob in the form of a cabbage. The tureen is of special interest because to the relief decoration has been added enamel colouring in primrose-yellow, green, and pale red; an examination of the piece discloses on the bottom, not only the incised mark of Henri Trou, but also a fleur-de-lys in overglaze blue, showing that the colouring was added at the Spanish royal factory of Buen Retiro. Another tureen in the same collection has polychrome painting executed at St. Cloud, a typical example of a rare class; in a strong orange-yellow, green, purple, red and blue are depicted Oriental figures and a motive of a bird singing among trees by a wattled hedge, borrowed from the Japanese Kakiyemon.

The life of the St. Cloud works was a long one,—it lasted till 1766, having survived a disastrous fire in 1737,—and its output must have been considerable; yet it had little direct influence on the subsequent history of ceramics. It is indeed interesting to note here the existence at Kensington of a seau in Staffordshire salt-glazed stoneware with relief ornament copied from a St. Cloud model; but this is an isolated case, and imitations of St. Cloud are not common even among the productions of French factories. A different tale can be told of the next in importance of the early French china works. The factory founded in 1725 by Louis-Henri de Bourbon, prince de Condé, on his domain at Chantilly, was destined to hold a position of more than transient significance. Not only were styles of decoration devised there which became popular beyond the Channel as well as in France itself; Chantilly has a greater claim to recognition in that it was two Chantilly workmen who initiated the greatest of all European enterprises of this kind, the royal and national manufactory at Sèvres.

Before entering into details of this passage in the course of events, some account must be given of the productions of the parent factory. The prince de Condé chose for his director one Ciquaire Cirou, who appears to have been a faïence-maker, and obtained royal recognition by a grant of letters patent in 1735. The distinguishing element in the earlier Chantilly porcelain is the use as a surface-coating of the same tin-enamel which is the generic feature of faïence. For some ten years the Chantilly potters confined their artistic efforts as far as painting was concerned to adaptations or often close imitations of Oriental porcelain of the preceding decades, of which the princely patron had a rich collection. The Chinese famille verte supplied the motives in a few instances, but the wares which suggested to Cirou and his painters their daintiest designs were the work of Kakiyemon. Few things have been made to display more effectively the delicate freshness which is the crowning virtue of painted porcelain. The warm tone of the stanniferous glaze yields a softer ground for the flower-like hues of the enamel colours than the colder white of the Japanese prototypes, while the esprit of the French interpreter adds to the charming Eastern themes just that homeliness of touch which endears them to Western beholders. No better illustration could be furnished than by the little silver-mounted pot de toilette from Mr. Fitzhenry’s gift to the nation, figured in Plate 13. Little Japanese boys at play, houses perched among fir-trees on rocky crags, tiny birds and butterflies are scattered with an unimpeachable sense of fitness over the creamy white surface; all, down to the mark on the bottom, a cour de chasse in red enamel, is drawn with the greatest neatness.

A ground colour of pure primrose-yellow is sometimes seen in pieces of this early period, borrowed doubtless from Meissen, and foreshadowing the sumptuous coloured grounds of Vincennes and Sèvres. This is well exemplified by a large jardinière with rococo ormolu mounting, also in the Fitzhenry gift. At a later date less distinctive manners were adopted, bouquets of flowers of the Meissen type, cupids in the style of Boucher, and rococo-panelled designs. The manufacture was commercialised and the quality of the wares rapidly deteriorated, but still a good word may be said for the blue festooned borders which are a common feature in Chantilly services, and are an admirable pattern of what designs in table ware should be. An instance is the service made for Louis Philippe, duc d’Orléans, for use at his château of Villers-Cotterets; a plate from this set is in the Kensington collection.

Two other minor factories of soft-paste china call for a passing notice, those of Mennecy and Sceaux, both near Paris. The former appears to have been first established in Paris itself, and in 1748 transferred to a site at Mennecy on the estate of the duc de Villeroy, who supported it with his patronage. In 1773, on the expiration of their lease, the directors of the works removed their plant to Bourg-la-Reine, where they came under the protection of the comte d’Eu. The factory was in the main confined to the production of small articles for the boudoir, to which their simple decoration of bouquets or brightly-plumaged birds is well enough suited. Objects for purely ornamental purposes are seldom met with. In Mr. Fitzhenry’s gift there is a pair of vases on high pedestals of the form known from its antique prototype as the “vase Médicis,” finely painted with birds in landscapes. It may be remarked that the polychrome flower-painting of Mennecy often bears a close resemblance to that of early Chelsea. Figures were turned out in considerable quantities. The earlier ones are generally left white, and show not only a sense of the grotesque but also much artistic feeling in their breadth of modelling. The later figures with polychrome painting, somewhat childish conceptions, it is true, are yet not without a certain grace and daintiness; an important set of groups of children with musical instruments in the Fitzhenry Collection belongs to this class.

The works at Sceaux, dating back apparently to 1749, are noteworthy for the skilfulness of their flower-paintings; the tints are brilliant yet harmonious, while the drawing is executed with remarkable care and sureness of touch.

The royal manufactory of Sèveres, destined to enjoy a fame greater than that of any other in Europe, had its origin in a combination of circumstances from which at first no great results might have been expected. Orry de Fulvy, intendant des finances to Louis XV., had long been interested in experiments for making porcelain, when at Vincennes in 1738 he came across two workmen from Chantilly, the brothers Dubois, to whom reference has already been made. They had been allowed secretly to set up a kiln in the precincts of the château. De Fulvy gave them his support, and their operations were continued at his expense. The Dubois were subsequently dismissed as incompetent, and the venture was in danger of abandonment; but after many vicissitudes De Fulvy’s perseverance was crowned with success, and in 1745 he was able to form a company for the manufacture under royal privilege. For eleven years the works were carried on at Vincennes, but in 1756 they were transferred to new premises at Sèvres, on the other side of Paris, at a convenient distance from the royal palace of Versailles; three years previously the company had been reorganised under an exclusive privilege, the king himself holding a quarter of the shares, while the royal interest in the undertaking was signalised by the stipulation that its productions should be marked with the royal cipher of two interlaced “L”s.

From the outset the wares were given a high artistic quality. Duplessis, goldsmith to the king, was charged in 1747 with the control of the modellers; he kept the workshops under close personal supervision, and to his guiding influence is attributable the originality and unfailing taste of the shapes adopted. Hellot, director of the Academy of Sciences, was in charge of the chemical composition of the materials, while Bachelier was at the head of the painters and gilders. Drawings of figure-subjects were supplied by François Boucher for the painted decoration, as well as for translation into the round by the modellers; an instance of the latter process is the fine biscuit group of Leda modelled from Boucher’s design by Fernex, a painted version of the same subject being in the National Museum at Stockholm.

The rare pieces surviving from the earliest stage of the factory’s existence show clearly the aim which De Fulvy set himself of competing with the Saxon porcelain; the landscapes or river-scenes painted on them, with miniature groups of figures and buildings, are evidently inspired by the Meissen subjects of the period. The same is true of the coloured grounds with medallions in reserve which made their appearance shortly afterwards, but the colours used for the purpose were entirely new. The earliest of these was the deep blue (“gros bleu”) from which was subsequently developed the famous “bleu de roi.” The researches of Hellot bore fruit later in the discovery of the rose Pompadour pink and turquoise-blue. A feature of the earliest years of the factory before its removal from Vincennes were the artificial flowers modelled in porcelain, which amounted in value to over three-fourths of the total output.

None of the pieces in our illustrations are of the primitive period. They represent several of the Sèvres ground colours. Plate 14 shows a jardinière with openwork socket painted with cupids and flowers in panels reserved on a rose Pompadour ground. It is marked with the royal cipher enclosing the date-letter I, for 1761, and with a branch of foliage, the mark of the painter Jean René Dubois.

The ewer and basin in Plate 15 are dated 1763 and have the mark of the decorator Catrice. On a ground of yellow (jaune jonquille) are rococo-bordered panels with charming miniatures of children painted, with the exception of the flesh tints, en camaïeu in blue. This manner of painting in a monochrome of blue or crimson is a survival from an earlier period, in which it is often found as the sole decoration on a plain white ground; the simple contours of the shapes also point back to an early style.

The écuelle or soup-bowl with cover and stand, shown in Plate 16, selected like the last two pieces from the Jones Collection, is an example of the most sumptuous style of Sèvres applied to the decoration of porcelain for useful purposes. It bears the date-letter “P” for 1768. The panels with pastoral scenes in colours by Chabry fils follow closely the manner of Boucher, if he did not actually supply the designs for them; with the rich gilt scrollwork borders and the turquoise ground they blend in an ensemble of splendid but harmonious effect, admirably in keeping with the gracefully-modelled shapes. Another specimen of Sèvres table ware of a simpler class is the jug reproduced in Plate 17, with lid attached by a silver hinge. On the bottom are the date-letter for 1770 and the mark of the flower-painter Bouillat fils.

The subject of the next drawing, a vase in the Jones Collection, with classical busts in medallions raised above an apple-green ground, brings us to the year 1772, with which by the death of the director Boileau the most prosperous epoch of the factory’s career came to a close. When compared with the previous illustrations, a distinct change of style is noticeable; not a trace of the rococo of Louis XV. is to be seen, while the laurel-wreath round the foot and the classical ornament surrounding the cameo-like medallion betoken the adoption of the severer and simpler style associated with the following reign. The transition to antique forms and ornament came about in Sèvres china more gradually than in other branches of French applied art, partly on account of the fact that in many cases the artists and workmen in the factory were succeeded by their sons, who kept up the traditions they had learned from their parents. The change in the directorship and the succession of the new king two years later finally determined the abandonment of the old style.

The vase represented in Plate 19 is typical of the new tendencies. It embodies to perfection the graceful French interpretation of classical art associated with the name of Louis XVI. The vase is noteworthy not only as a splendid exponent of the powers of the royal manufacture, but also on account of its historical associations. It was made in 1780, and was given by Gustavus III., King of Sweden, as a present to the empress Catherine II. of Russia; the gift was the outcome of an unexpected turn of events, resulting from the war between England and her American colonies. The state of hostilities at sea was a grave menace to the commerce of the northern countries, and an alliance was formed on 1st August 1780, between Sweden, Denmark, and Russia, powers at that time usually at variance, to ensure the safety of their merchant fleets. Gustavus III., who himself played the rôle of Augustus in Swedish history, had a great admiration for the genius of the Russian empress. He was at the time absent from his kingdom on a long tour in the South, in the course of which he had doubtless had opportunities of forming a personal judgment of the merits of the French royal porcelain. It is not surprising therefore that he should have thought of a set of Sèvres china as a suitable present to mark the occasion of the treaty; he invoked to assist him in his choice a friend of earlier days, the writer Marmontel, to whom he communicated his desires through his ambassador at the French Court, the baron de Staël. The circumstances of the purchase are fully related in the letter dated 29th August 1780, by which Marmontel informed the director of the factory, Regnier, of the selection he had made at the works. Of five pieces chosen to make up a garniture de cheminée, one is the vase before us, and it is worth while to cite the words in which it is described: “Un grand vase bleu de roi et or, avec un cartouche représentant une marine marchande. Dans ce petit tableau deux hommes sont occupés à lire dans un livre posé sur un tonneau. Je suis convenu avec le peintre que sur le livre il écrivoit ces mots que je vais tracer figurativement:

Il faut que ces caractères soient en émail et l’on m’a promis que cette petite besogne seroit faite aujourd’hui.”

The remaining four pieces of the set were a pair of figures representing Pygmalion and Prometheus, and two small cornucopia vases. Instructions were given for the figures to be inscribed with verses of Marmontel’s own composition, highly flattering to the imperial recipient of the present. The letter concludes with a request that the goods might be despatched without delay to the Swedish king, who was awaiting them at Spa. The price paid for the vase was 720 livres, and for the complete set 1896 livres.

The subsequent story of the vase is not fully known, but it may be surmised that it left Russia on the occasion of a great fire at the palace of Czarskoë Selo, when it is recorded that many pieces now scattered in various museums were stolen from the celebrated turquoise-blue service of Sèvres china ordered by Catherine II. in 1788. The vase was bought by Mr. Jones in 1880 at the sale of the San Donato Palace at Florence, and is now housed with the rest of his bequest to the nation. It remains only to mention that the marine subject in the style of Joseph Vernet is the work of Morin, the bouquet of flowers in the reverse medallion is by Fontaine, while the gilding was done by Le Guay, whose signature with the royal cipher is painted under the base.

A brief allusion has already been made to the sculpture in biscuit china, which was among the most remarkable work done at Sèvres during the time of its prosperity. The enamelled figures in the Meissen style, made in the earliest stages at Vincennes, were soon superseded in popularity by those in biscuit, a much better vehicle for reproducing delicate modelling. The high artistic merit attained by them was due to the guiding genius of the sculptor Falconet, who was in charge of the modellers from 1757 for nearly ten years; he himself provided the models for nearly all the figures made during that period, the traditions set by him being maintained by his successors. His nice sense of the capabilities of his material is manifest alike in graceful genre and pastoral subjects and in works of more elevated conception, such as the Pygmalion group already mentioned.

After the death of Bachelier the factory was hampered by mismanagement and financial difficulties; the consequent deterioration in its productions was precipitated by the French Revolution, which marks the close of its most glorious epoch. The artistic level reached in the last years of Louis XV. was never again attained until recent times; the success of the factory was the outcome of the peculiar excellence of the Sèvres soft-paste for the display of gilding and painting in enamel colours, and the abandonment of this class of body was inevitably followed by an artistic decline. At quite an early stage of the factory’s career experiments were made with a view to discovering in France the materials for true hard porcelain like that of China and Germany. The success of those researches in 1765 was the prelude to the complete adoption of the new material, when the works were rescued by Napoleon from the state of adversity into which they had sunk in the revolutionary period. For some years before the fall of Louis XVI. both soft and hard-paste were made concurrently; an early example of the latter is a cup and saucer in the Jones Collection, painted with the shield of France supported by an eagle and a dolphin, made to commemorate the birth of the ill-fated Dauphin in 1781. Under the Empire and the restored monarchy everything was done that could be effected by rich gilding and highly-finished painting to bring back the magnificence of former years, and the new material made possible dimensions never attempted before; witness is borne by the huge vase in the Sèvres Museum representing the arrival in Paris of the artistic spoils of Napoleon’s Italian conquests, and another with a frieze depicting the athletic sports of ancient Greece. France suffered perhaps less than other countries from the general debasement of art in that age, but the redeeming charm of the eighteenth century styles was gone, and with it the glory of the Sèvres factory; its artistic recovery with the return of French prosperity under the Third Republic belongs to recent history.

Before leaving the subject of French porcelain, something must be said of the cluster of Parisian factories for making hard-paste china, which arose in many cases under Court patronage after the introduction of the new material at Sèvres. The exclusive privileges of the royal factory, designed to repress all attempts at competition within the borders of France, had been one by one abandoned, having become gradually of no effect. In 1787 complete liberty was accorded to all French manufacturers to pursue all the methods employed at Sèvres, including the jealously-protected use of gilding. As a rule only useful wares were made in the smaller factories, but these were often of considerable merit. The use of gold as the only decoration on a white ground became increasingly popular, and much charming ware is ornamented in this manner. A typical instance may be cited in the spirit-kettle made at the Clignancourt works, comprised in the series of Parisian hard-paste in the Fitzhenry gift. The affectation by these small factories of classical forms is exemplified in the same collection by a ewer with oblong basin decorated in gold and blue, made in the duc d’Angoulême’s kilns in the rue Bondy, which are also famous for the pretty cornflower-sprig pattern afterwards popular in English china.