The Story of Porcelain Part 12

"Now please go on with the story," urged Theo.

"Well, one day it happened that a rich Saxon iron-master was taking a ride, and as he went along his horse's foot stuck in the soft clay at the roadside. As the rider glanced down to see what the trouble was he was amazed to discover that the clay was white, and being a business man the thought instantly came into his mind that here was a way to make some money. At that time all the n.o.bles of the Court wore powdered wigs, and the quick-witted iron-master said to himself: 'I will get some of this clay, sift it very fine, do it up in packages, and sell it for powdering the hair; thus I will make my fortune.'

Accordingly his servants dug some of the clay, and after it had been carefully sifted through cloth, he put it upon the market as a new wig-powder. Now in those days the more well-to-do persons had several wigs or at least two, in order that while the one was being worn the other might be sent away to the hair-dresser's to be curled and powdered. Therefore, in the course of time it chanced that Bottger's servant, like others, sent away his master's wig to have it freshened up. When it came back it was beautifully dressed and was powdered with some of the iron-master's new powder. It looked very fine indeed, and Bottger had no fault to find with it until he took it up to put it on his head; then he observed that it was strangely heavy. 'What's this!'

he cried to his servant. 'What have you been doing to my wig, rascal?'

Terror-stricken the servant protested that he had done nothing.

Bottger carried the wig into his laboratory that he might examine it more carefully, and he soon came to the conclusion that the weight of the article lay in the powder. He therefore shook it off and set to work to a.n.a.lyze it. What was his surprise to find the powder a white mineral substance of which he knew nothing. You may be sure he was not long in tracking down the hair-dresser and learning from him where he got his new powder. Next he went to the Saxon iron-master and bought from him a great quant.i.ty of the stuff, after which the chemist shut himself up in his laboratory to try out the new material. Think how excited he must have been! And think how much more excited he was when he found that this mysterious white clay was the substance for which he had so long been searching!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HIS SERVANTS DUG SOME OF THE CLAY"]

"Kaolin?" gasped Theo.

"Kaolin!"

The room was very still; then Theo stammered hurriedly:

"And what happened next?"

"Well, you can imagine the joy the discovery brought; but it was a carefully stifled joy, for with all his delight Bottger was far too discreet to allow his wonderful discovery to travel outside the confines of his laboratory. When the Elector Augustus was told the news at his Dresden palace near by he was wild with delight, and immediately began building a great porcelain factory at Meissen. By 1715 there was enough of the new ware ready to be put on sale at Leipsic; and thus our beautiful porcelain, dubbed Dresden ware in honor of the Saxon capitol, came into being. The first that was made was plain white with a decoration of vines and leaves in low relief. Later some of the dishes were made with a perforated border in imitation of the Chinese and j.a.panese 'grains-of-rice' pattern.

Afterward the potters attempted the use of blue in a vain attempt to reproduce Nankin Blue ware."

"I guess the other countries were pretty sore when they found Saxony had learned how to make porcelain," put in Theo.

"They were greatly agitated, my son," laughed Mr. Croyden. "They begged, bribed, and schemed to find out what the new clay was; but all to no purpose. The works at Meissen were guarded day and night, and every person employed in the factory was compelled to swear to keep the great secret. Men were cautioned they would be shot should they divulge the process. _Be secret to Death_ was the motto of the manufactory, and that meant not only that they never should tell anybody all their life-long; but if threatened with harm they should prefer death to betraying their trust. They must even endure torture itself rather than open their mouths. Some histories go so far as to say that in order to secure absolute secrecy only the deaf and dumb were allowed to transport the clay."

"I don't see but they were just as selfish as the Chinese."

"Quite as selfish, alas!"

"What became of Bottger?"

"I am sorry to say he never did much of anything else that was praiseworthy. Sometimes too much success spoils people. But he had done his work, and a great work, too, in launching this vast industry. When he died he left behind him a group of thriving factories. After his death the artists at the Meissen works gradually abandoned copying Chinese and j.a.panese designs and began inventing decorations of their own, using both gold and an increasing variety of colors. They also began to secure the aid of sculptors, among them the famed sculptor Kandler who modeled statuettes of saints, animals, birds, and persons in much the way the Dutch had done. These figures or groups, however, were more finely executed, and were beautifully colored. As the makers of them became more expert larger figures were attempted until some of them were life-sized."

"Goodness!"

"It does seem absurd, doesn't it?" agreed Mr. Croyden. "It is a childish impulse to want to make everything as big as one can make it.

Nevertheless in a land where much of the population was Catholic you can readily understand how these gigantic figures readily found places upon altars in the churches of Europe. All might have gone well with this great porcelain plant had not the Seven Years' War arisen just at this time, lasting from 1756 to 1763. During this period Frederick the Great, the grandfather of the present Emperor of Germany, went into Saxony, stopped the royal factories at Meissen, and took the workmen as captives to Berlin."

"But----" began Theo indignantly.

"Such things are the issues of war," said Mr. Croyden gravely. "We cannot uphold them, nor cease to deplore their injustice. We can only pray that a day may come when the envy between nations will cease, and when each country shall respect its neighbor's rights in a truly Christian spirit. Then we shall have a world for which we shall not need to blush, and which will really be civilized."

"Did the Saxon workmen have to make Dresden china in Germany?"

"Yes. Works under the patronage of the Emperor were opened at Berlin, and here porcelain was made, the profits of which went to the Royal Treasury, the workmen being paid very little indeed. Much of the ware manufactured the monarch kept for his own use; and much of it he gave away whenever he wished to make a fine present to his friends. But so lavishly did the Saxon potters use the deposits of native clay that later the supply became poorer in quality, and as a consequence the body of the later Dresden was not so perfect as that made at Meissen. For this reason collectors set great value on the early Dresden work, that made between 1731 and 1756; also on the figures modeled by the sculptor, Kandler."

"Did the works at Berlin continue?" inquired Theo, who had become absorbed in the story.

"Yes," replied Mr. Croyden. "You see, even before the capital at Dresden was captured by the Germans and the Meissen workmen carried off, attempts had been made in Prussia to manufacture porcelain from ordinary stone. Several private business concerns as well as various individuals had put their money into the enterprise and had even met with some success. But this ware was manufactured on no very extended scale. Now, however, the Emperor was determined that his venture should succeed. Not only did he bring to Berlin the workmen and the clay, but he even sent forth the edict that no Jew in his kingdom should marry until he had purchased an entire supply of porcelain from the Royal factories. As most of the Jews were rich this law a.s.sured their master a wide sale for his product. That they did not wish to spend all this money for china and resented the order troubled him not at all. Most of these unlucky Jews bought their expensive porcelain sets only to sell them afterward to other customers, and thus get them off their hands. In this way much of the early Berlin Dresden ware found its way into Russia, where rich Russian Jews were glad to buy it. After repeated improvements the Berlin porcelain came in time to be as fine as that made originally at Meissen; and not only were the Meissen works reopened under German patronage, but the State also established another factory at Charlottenberg.

"Now, do not forget, Theo, that all this early Meissen or Dresden porcelain, as well as that eventually manufactured at Berlin, was made from hard paste, or a combination of clays resulting in what we call true porcelain. Later on I shall tell you much about soft paste wares, and about bone china. None of those varieties, however, ranks as real porcelain. Remember that only the hard paste products are genuine."

Mr. Croyden paused a moment, then added: "And while we are speaking of this period in history you may perhaps be interested to know that it was a workman who escaped from Meissen into Austria who started in Vienna the art of making porcelain from hard paste."

"True porcelain," remarked Theo, who had profited by his lesson.

"Just so, son. Work in porcelain-making had been going on in Austria since about 1717; but it had been done in a small way by private individuals, who had only small capital to put into it, and who had met with little success because the ware they had turned out had been thick and muddy in appearance. In 1744 the Empress Maria Theresa purchased these works, and from that time on they began to prosper. You see, the monarchs of those days could make almost any industry a success if they once set out to do so. Not only had they the capital to back their undertaking but they could compel their subjects to patronize the venture."

Theo laughed. "I see."

"Therefore by 1785 the Empress's china factory was a very busy place which was supplying with porcelain not only Austria, but also Turkey. In 1796 Lamprecht, one of the leading animal painters of the monarchy, was decorating this ware with wonderful pictures of stags, hounds, horses, in which work he excelled. But because of the Mohammedan law that no copies of living creatures could be used for designs the Turks refused to purchase these dishes. Hence Vienna, eager to retain the Oriental trade, was forced to change its artistic trend and make instead porcelains adorned with arabesques and geometrical figures. At the present time," concluded Mr. Croyden, "there are extensive pottery and porcelain factories throughout Germany and Austria-Hungary, and much of our finest ware comes from these countries. Were you to study history you would find that many of these factories sprang up from small beginnings, and that amid the turmoil of European strife they had a stiff fight for existence."

"I think I never considered before the effect of war upon anything but persons," remarked Theo musingly.

"Alas, the destruction war wages against human life is bad enough,"

answered Mr. Croyden. "But see, too, how it r.e.t.a.r.ds the arts and industries of the world. May the day be not far distant when nations shall find a more Christian and intelligent method of settling their differences, and when wars shall cease forevermore!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER IX

THE ROMANCE OF FRENCH CHINA-MAKING

The next day when Mr. Croyden put his head in at Theo's door to say good-morning he found the boy sitting up in bed eating his breakfast and his first remark was:

"How long did it take France to find out how to make porcelain, Mr. Croyden?"

The manufacturer laughed.

"I declare if you are not beginning this morning just where you left off last night!" he exclaimed. "What kind of porcelain do you mean, hard or soft paste?"

"Oh, any kind."

"You have not forgotten the vast difference between the hard and soft ware, have you? I should be discouraged if you had."

Theo shook his head.

"I don't believe you would let me forget even if I wanted to," he replied with an impish chuckle.

"I certainly shouldn't," smiled Mr. Croyden. Then he added more seriously: "Soft paste china, or pate tendre, as it is called, was made at St. Cloud as early as 1695, and some of it was very beautiful. Such ware looks more creamy and is not so cold and harsh to the touch. It is, however, much more fragile and for that reason, although a great deal of it was manufactured, the industry never became a wide-spread success. Later soft paste was also made at Chantilly, Vincennes, Limoges, Paris, and a number of French cities. Even the celebrated Sevres ware, the finest thing in china-making that France ever produced, was at first made from soft paste. This is easily understood when you recall that at the beginning the only clays the French knew anything about were pate tendre clays. It was not until kaolin was discovered in 1765 and taken from the section about St. Yrieix that hard paste, or pate dure, was made in France."

"I see."

"Nevertheless the French people got wonderful results from their pate tendre, and became wildly enthusiastic over the pieces the china-designers turned out. And well they might for the French were an inventive, art-loving people who certainly got fine results from their early china-making. To understand the place art occupied at that time you must remember that the Court was a centre for all those who were interested in beautiful things. The King was ever on the lookout for what was novel or artistic, and ready to give it his patronage; and whatever the King patronized became the fad among the rich, idle courtiers. So when the King turned his attention to the new art of china-making its success was a.s.sured; as a matter of course all the rest of the fas.h.i.+onable world did the same."