Page 295 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

PORCELAIN DECORATED

of pottery and stone-ware, with monochromatic or

polychromatic glazes.

Note must also be taken of Chinese porcelains
decorated in Europe. About the year 1700, the
Dutch keramists discovered the method of preparing
some of the colours used for painting over the glaze.

To employ these colours for decorating faience, such

as that manufactured at Delft, would have been diffi-

cult, if not impossible. Accordingly the first essays

were made with porcelains imported from China,

offering a greater or less expanse of white surface for

the exercise of the enameller's art. About the same

epoch the pdte-tendre ware of Sevres and the hard
porcelain of Bottger making their appearance, these
also began to be decorated with Delft enamels after
Chinese fashions. Such essays were speedily followed
by similar imitations from the factories in Italy,
Saxony, Austria, and England. It then occurred to

the merchants who had hitherto included Chinese

decorated porcelains among their articles of trade,

that a profit might also be realized by importing
white porcelains for ornamentation at the hands of

Delft experts. M. du Sartel, in his " Porcelaine de

Chine," says that a regular business of this nature

sprang up in 1705. The well-known keramist,

Gerrit von der Kaade, and his confreres at Delft pur-
chased quantities of Chinese undecorated porcelain,
and adorned it with pictures sometimes of purely

European genre, sometimes of Chinese type. The

industry lasted until 1740, and during this interval

of thirty-five years many specimens were produced,

excellent alike in technique and artistic conception.
Their enamels lacked the brilliancy of the " Famille
Verte" and the continued solidity and delicacy of the

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