Page 428 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

26o Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

Law's bubble, and even with Japanese and Chinese patterns, espe-
cially those which the Delft potters were in the habit of copying
from the " old Imari." Thus we find the curious phenomenon of
Chinese porcelain decorated in Europe with Oriental patterns, and,

as may be imagined, these pieces have caused much perplexity

to collectors. They are, however, to be recognised by the inferior
quality of the enamels and the stiff drawing of the copyists. In
the case of the Fukien porcelain with relief ornament, the decorators

often confined themselves to touching the raised pattern with •

colour.

As a rule, these added decorations are crude and unsightly,
but there were artists of great skill among the German chambrelans
(as these unattached enamellers were called), such men ^as Ignatius
Bottengruber and Preussler of Breslau,^ who flourished about 1720
to 1730. Their designs of figures, mythical subjects, etc., enclosed
by baroque scrollwork, were skilfully executed in camaieu red or
black, heightened with gilding, and their work, which is very man-
nered and distinctive, is highly prized at the present day. Occasion-
ally we find the handiwork of the Dutch lapidary on Chinese
porcelains, a design of birds and floral scrolls being cut through a
dark blue or brown glaze into the white biscuit.

About the middle of the eighteenth century a more legitimate
material was found for the European decorator in small
quantities of Chinese porcelain sent over " in the white." Regular
supplies in this state must have been forwarded from Ching-te
Chen to Canton for the enamellers there, and, no doubt, the Euro-
pean merchants were able to secure a small amount of this. Thus
it was that Chinese porcelain is occasionally found with decoration
by artists whose touch is recognised on Chelsea and other wares.
It is not necessary to assume that such pieces were painted in the

Chelsea factory. That may have been the case, but we know of

important enamelling establishments, such as Duesbury's in London,

where Chelsea, Bow and Worcester porcelains obtained in the

white were decorated to order. It is probable that the painters
trained in this work afterwards passed into the porcelain factories.
There are rare examples of Chinese porcelain with transfer prints
executed at Battersea or even at Worcester, and apparently one or
two pieces have had inscriptions added at Lowestoft ; but, after

^ Another chambrelan who flourished about the same time and who worked in the
same style was G. F. de Wolfsbourg.