Edward Dillon

“ It was not till the end of the twelfth century that any important advance was made in our narrower department of ‘hollow ware.’ Among the many beautiful things made during that glorious season of artistic production that had its start about this time in Egypt (or perhaps, rather, in the lands between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean) —except it be the inlaid metal work—there is nothing that now interests us so much as the enamelled glass, the beautiful ware that culminated in the magnificent Cairene mosque lamps of the thirteenth 5 and fourteenth centuries. ”

“ You have first to persuade yourself that you are looking at something made of porcelain: once convinced of this, you marvel at the technical difficulties that have been overcome in its manufacture, but what it never even occurs to one to look for in these monstrous vases, is any trace of that beauty of surface and brilliancy of decoration that we are accustomed to associate with the substance of which they are composed. ”

“ What criterion is there for distinguishing between specimens of early Ming, late Ming, or Manchu times?—or indeed between those of Chinese and Japanese origin? That we even now possess no very exact criterion is shown by the wide difference of opinion so often found in individual cases. If we are to form our judgment from the rare extant pieces of blue and white known to have been imported into Europe in the sixteenth century, we must regard the Ming ware as distinguished by a certain irregularity of surface, seen best by side-reflected lights ”

“ When we come to consider the various factories of porcelain that sprang up in Europe in the course of the eighteenth century, we shall find that what strikes the inquirer above all (in comparison with the kindred arts of the time) is the little we can observe in the way of development either in the technique or decoration of the wares. The art springs up full-blown; what history there is is concerned rather with an artistic decline. ”

“ Perhaps the principal charm of this native Indian glass arises from the violent contrast that it affords to the impeccable cristallo and to the flint-glass that have tyrannised over us so long in Europe. It is beginning at length to dawn upon us that there are other qualities than absolute transparency and absence of colour to be looked for in our material, and it is the attempt to bring these qualities into prominence that has led to the 347 development in France within the last few years of quite a new treatment of glass. ”

“ What we somewhat vaguely call ‘blue and white,’ that is porcelain decorated under the glaze with designs painted with cobalt blue, has always formed the most important class in the eyes of European collectors, at least of those of England and Holland. This preference has been even more marked with the people of India and Persia, and no wonder, for no combination of colour more suggestive of coolness could be imagined. It has thus come about that this class of ware, more than any other, has been made with the direct object of exportation. ”

“ It is essential that these enamels should be more fusible than the body on which they are painted, so that when subjected to the heat of the muffle-fire they may be completely fused, while the glass or glaze on which they rest is not more than superficially softened. Such enamel decoration, whether on porcelain or on glass, may vary from a mere wash of colour on the one hand, of which it is sometimes difficult to say whether it has ever been subjected to the heat of the muffle-fire, to a true vitreous covering on the other, where the various colours stand out in relief like so many jewels. ”

“ To Germany from time to time during the Middle Ages came new waves of influence from the East, by various and sometimes very circuitous paths,—in Charlemagne’s time by way of Ravenna and Rome, more directly from Constantinople in the tenth century, when Otto the Great married his son to the grand-daughter of the Greek Emperor. About the same time we hear of Greek craftsmen at work in German monasteries, as at Reichenau on the lower Lake of Constance, where, by the way, a great slab of bluish-green glass, traditionally of Byzantine origin, is still preserved. ”

“ At Sèvres, on the other hand, we shall see that the glaze of the hard porcelain contains no lime, while that substance is an essential constituent in the paste.
The Meissen porcelain, and indeed the German porcelains generally, form a typically hard and refractory group. But they have in a full measure les défauts de leurs qualités. Among them we may look in vain for that blending of the glaze and body that gives to the best Chinese porcelain a surface like that of polished marble; still less do we find in the enamel decoration the brilliancy and transparence of Oriental wares. ”

“ THE FRENCH GLASS OF THE RENAISSANCE In the history of European glass the culminating point is perhaps reached in the Venetian glass of the first half of the sixteenth century—I am speaking, of course, from the artistic point of view. For a century or more after this time our history is concerned with little else than the spread of the Italian methods of manufacture and decoration over the west of Europe. After the middle of the seventeenth century the interest becomes more and more centred in the technical and economical improvements in the manufacture. ”

“ At this time, in fact, the Kaga ware had hardly differentiated itself from that of the parent province. It was not till the beginning of the eighteenth century that the typical Kutani ware, one of the most original and decorative ever turned out from Japanese kilns, was produced.
On a greyish paste, hardly to be reckoned as porcelain, the lustrous, full-bodied enamels, almost unctuous in quality, are laid with a full brush. The whole surface is generally covered, and a dark, juicy green is the prevailing colour, over which a design of black lines is drawn. ”

“ There is, however, one division of classical glass—we can hardly call it Roman, although most of the finer specimens may be traced back to Rome or to the tombs of Central and Southern Italy—which forms in some degree a transition from our primitive family to the true blown glass of imperial times. This is the so-called Millefiori Glass. We have, doubtless, in this a development of the ‘fused mosaics’ of the Egyptians, worked out on a larger scale, and employed for other objects than flat slabs and fragments for inlay. ”

“ The flower-painter came first with realistic, well-shaded little nosegays, in the style of the Dutch painters of the day; then landscapes, views of real towns, sometimes in a purple-red monochrome, and surrounded by a gold rococo frame to imitate that of an oil picture. The free use of gold, however, in the European porcelain of this time, was to some extent a saving point. It helped, as gold always does, to pull together the decoration. On the earlier Meissen ware the gold is most solidly applied and has worn well. ”

“ I have already called attention to the important part played by Bristol in the manufacture of glass during the eighteenth century. That town obtained at this time a unique distinction in the history of English glass, as the one spot where a distinct kind of ware—a special genre—was made. It cannot be precisely stated when the opaque white glass decorated with enamel colours was first made at Bristol; what record we have does not take us further back than the latter half of the eighteenth century. ”

“ It is a strange fancy which connects the decoration of a vase with the source of the materials with which it is made. Elsewhere, speaking of the painting of the blue and white ware, Tang-ying says: ‘For painting of flowers and of birds, fishes and water-plants, and living objects generally, the study of nature is the first requisite. In the imitation of Ming porcelain and of ancient pieces, the sight of many specimens brings skill.’ We see in this a kind of hesitation, a balancing between two influences—the naturalistic and the traditional—which is characteristic of the period. ”

“ In one department of the vitreous arts the French occupied no doubt for a time the premier place—the stained glass of their cathedrals is acknowledged to be the finest in Europe. But in our branch of the manufacture, a branch for which, curiously enough, the French alone have provided a name—la verrerie—that nation has never occupied a prominent position. Since Roman times, the first place as producers of glass vessels of artistic importance has been held in succession by Byzantine Greeks, by Saracens, by Venetians, by Germans, and for a moment by the English. ”

“ The next stage in our history brings us at one step to Europe. Before making this stride of more than a thousand leagues from Japan to Central Germany, it will be convenient to bring together some of the scattered references to the porcelain of China that have been laboriously disinterred from the works of the Arab and Christian writers of the Middle Ages, and to compare these statements with the scant account of the trade with Western lands to be found in the Chinese books of that time. ”

“ As I have already said, the gap which exists between the later Roman and the great school of enamelled Saracenic glass of the thirteenth century can only be filled by a few scattered examples from widely distant sources. The tombs now fail us, and we are thrown back for the most part upon the treasures and relics preserved in the churches of Italy, France, and Germany. Such objects represent but one aspect of the glass produced at the time: they reflect above all the skill now acquired in staining glass so as to imitate precious stones. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The knowledge of porcelain was confined for nearly a thousand years to China, the country where it was first made, and where it was slowly brought to perfection. Let loose, as it were, in the West early in the eighteenth century, it had then a short period of glory, but before the end of the century the art had already fallen upon evil days. The manufacture of glass, on the other hand, had long been carried on in Egypt, and perhaps in other Eastern lands, by a primitive process, although it only became an article of general use after the discovery of the blowing-iron. ”

“ Indeed, in all lands and at all times, iron, copper, cobalt, and manganese have been the principal sources of colour in the decoration not only of porcelain, but of most other kinds of pottery. As equal to these four metals in importance, but not strictly to be classed as colouring materials, we may place tin, the source of most opaque whites, and lead, which is the main fluxing element for our enamels. ”

“ We have, then, in this cristallo the typical glass of Venice, and here more than in any other group, whether of earlier or of later date, we find a family of glass of which the artistic merit depends directly upon the skill of the glass-blower, rather than on that of the enameller or engraver. In the simpler and earlier specimens, an undeniable charm is derived from the extreme tenuity of the material—there is an evanescent and almost ghostly air about the ‘diaphanous, pellucid, dainty body’ [147] of not a few of these glasses. ”

“ Among the specimens of Spanish porcelain that we see in English collections, it is the plain white ware that interests us most. This is of a very beautiful warm tint, and the vases are surrounded by amorini in full relief among flowers, or again by sea-shells modelled from nature, as in the case of the Capo di Monte ware. But many other things were made—imitations of Wedgwood, for example, white relief on a dull blue ground. ”