THE SOFT AND HYBRID PORCELAINS OF ITALY AND SPAIN
The porcelain made in Italy in the eighteenth century is not of much
importance either from a technical or an artistic point of view. With
the exception of the Capo di Monte ware and its imitations, examples are
rarely found in English collections. On the whole the decoration is poor
in effect, and closely follows in the wake of the German wares. This is
the case at least with most of the porcelain made in the north of Italy.
Following, probably unconsciously, the example of the early Medici ware,
the refractory element in the eighteenth-century porcelain of Italy has
generally been found in a natural kaolinic clay which here replaces the
quartz-sand and the lime of the French soft paste, and it is this
peculiarity in their composition which led Brongniart to form a special
class for what he called the hybrid pastes of Italy.
VENICE.--There is, as we have seen, strong evidence that porcelain was
made in Venice in the sixteenth century, but such evidence is,
unfortunately, only documentary. We are in almost as bad a position when
we come to the ware manufactured in the city, perhaps as early as 1720,
by the Vezzi, a family of lately ennobled goldsmiths (see Sir W. R.
Drake, _Notes on Venetian Ceramics_, London, 1868, privately printed).
This
[Illustration: _PLATE XLI._ 1 AND 2--VENETIAN, BLUE AND WHITE
3--MEISSEN 4--FRANKENTHAL, LILAC AND GOLD]
ware was made by Saxon workmen with clay obtained from Saxony. To this
factory, however, we can safely attribute the tall cup and saucer, with
the arms of Benedict XIII. (1724-30), and the mark ‘Ven^a’ (PL. D. 63),
in the Franks collection (No. 446).
At this time Hunger, the Saxon painter and gilder, was in Venice. He was
already back at Meissen in 1725, and Dr. Brinckmann thinks that he may
have brought back from Venice the process of passing the gilding through
the muffle, which about that time replaced, at Meissen, the older plan
of ‘lac-gilding.’ The Vezzi works were closed in 1740, and not till 1758
do we hear of fresh attempts to imitate the Meissen ware. This time it
was a Saxon family driven out from Meissen by the war, one Hewelcke and
his wife, who set up a short-lived factory in which they attempted to
make porcelain ‘_ad uso di Sassonia_.’
It was probably with the assistance of Hewelcke that Geminiano Cozzi in
1764 established the porcelain works where (as we learn from the report
drawn up by the _Inquisitor alle Arti_ a few years later) he gave
employment to forty-five workmen. Cozzi made porcelain ‘_ad uso di
Giappone_,’ much of which was exported to Trieste and the Levant.[200]
This ware, decorated in Oriental style, must have been made exclusively
for the trade with the East, for, to judge from the specimens in our
museums, it was rather the ware of Meissen than that of Imari that Cozzi
took as his model. We find on his porcelain small views, especially
coast-scenes and ports, outlined in black and gold; again, on tea-and
coffee-services, flower-pieces and _chinoiseries_. He turned out also
some biscuit and glazed statuettes of considerable merit. Cozzi’s
factory survived until 1812. An anchor in red, larger than that used at
Chelsea, and of a different shape, is the mark usually found on this
china[201] (PL. D. 64).
LE NOVE.--A Venetian family, the Antonibon, had early in the eighteenth
century established an important manufactory of majolica at Le Nove,
near Bassano. Later on they turned their attention to porcelain and,
after the year 1760, Pasquale Antonibon produced some successful ware
marked with a star (PL. D. 65). One or two well modelled and carefully
finished specimens of this porcelain at South Kensington show the
influence of both Meissen and Sèvres. These works were in operation as
late as 1825.
VINOVO.--In the royal castle of Vinovo or Vineuf, near Turin, some
unsuccessful endeavours to manufacture porcelain were made with the help
of one of the younger Hannongs of Strassburg. A Turin doctor, Vittore
Amadeo Gioanetti, who had already made numerous experiments with the
clays and rocks of the district, met with better success about 1780. The
paste of this ware contains a considerable amount of silicate of
magnesia, obtained from a deposit of magnesite discovered in the
neighbourhood by the doctor.[202] This hybrid ware is more easily
fusible than a true porcelain, but it resists well rapid variations of
temperature. The usual mark is the letter V surmounted by the cross of
the house of Savoy (PL. D. 66).
CAPO DI MONTE.--Here in the northern suburbs of Naples, just beneath the
Royal Palace, an important factory of soft-paste porcelain was
established in 1742. Don Carlos, of Bourbon-Farnese extraction, had
recently exchanged his dukedom of Parma for the throne of the Two
Sicilies. In 1738 he had married a Saxon princess, but there is little
sign of any German influence either in the design or composition of the
ware made at his new porcelain factory at Capo di Monte. Like his cousin
at Versailles at a later date, he took the keenest interest in the sale
of his porcelain. An annual fair was held in front of the palace, and a
large purchase there was a sure passport to the favour of the king, who
is even said to have worked as a potter himself. When in 1759 Don Carlos
succeeded to the throne of Spain as Charles III., he, as it were,
carried his porcelain works with him, taking away the best workmen, so
that little of interest was made at Naples after that date.
To this earlier period belong the plain white pieces often in imitation
of sea-shells, or again resting on a heap of smaller shells moulded
probably from nature (a very similar ware was made at Bow and other
English factories). We find also highly coloured statuettes and groups
of figures. But the name of Capo di Monte is associated above all with
another style of decoration. The surface of the ware in this case is
covered by groups of figures, mythological subjects by preference, and
by vegetation, moulded in low relief and delicately coloured. This was
the ware imitated at Doccia in later days, and also, it would seem, at
Herend, in Hungary. But perhaps the most characteristic pieces then made
at Naples are the little detached figures, generally grotesques,
delicately modelled and painted (PL. XLII.).
In this Capo di Monte porcelain we may note generally the prevalence of
extreme rococo forms. The glaze of the white ware has a pleasant warm
tone resembling that of some of the Fukien porcelain, which may in part
have served as a model.
When the factory was re-established first at Portici and then again at
Naples, a very different influence is perceptible. There is a service at
Windsor presented by the King of Naples to George III. in 1787,
decorated with ‘_peintures Hetrusques_,’ that is to say, with
reproductions of antiques in the Museo Borbonico. This later ware
generally bears as a mark an N surmounted by a crown.
DOCCIA.--The interest of the factory at Doccia, some five miles to the
west of Florence, where majolica and many varieties of porcelain have
been made for the last one hundred and seventy years, centres round the
Ginori family. The founder of those works, the Marchese Carlo
Ginori,[203] who belonged to an old Florentine family, was sent, in
1737, by the Grand Duke on a diplomatic mission to the Emperor Francis
I. He had already, at his villa near Sesto, succeeded in making some
imitations of Oriental porcelain, and on his return from Vienna he
brought back with him the arcanist Carl Wandhelein. With his assistance
Ginori was able in a short time to turn out some well modelled
statuettes. The paste, however, was not very white or uniform, and the
larger pieces are generally disfigured by fissures. To this time belongs
probably a large statuette of a crouching Venus at South Kensington.
This kind of ware had its inspiration, no doubt, in the ambitious
attempts to replace the works of the sculptor with which the Meissen
factory was occupied about this time. Ginori was soon after appointed
Governor of Leghorn,[204] and he is said to have despatched a vessel to
China expressly to bring back the kaolin of that country.
[Illustration: _PLATE XLII._ 1, 2 AND 3--CAPO DI MENTE 4--DOCCIA]
The works at Doccia and the schools and museums attached to them are
frequently referred to by our eighteenth century travellers. There
appears to have been a period of decline, as was not unnatural, during
the Napoleonic wars, but by the early part of the nineteenth century the
factory at Doccia had become one of the most important in Europe. On the
death of the founder, in 1757, the works had been carried on by his son
Lorenzo, and he in his turn was succeeded by Carlo Leopoldo, who
introduced a new type of furnace. This remarkable dynasty of noble
potters has carried on the Doccia works to the present day.
Beside a large outturn of enamelled fayence and of hard porcelain, _ad
uso di Francia_, a milder or hybrid type of paste has been largely made,
and the materials have been obtained from many sources, native and
foreign. The dealers’ shops in Italy have been inundated with imitations
of the old majolica, and with the help of moulds obtained from the
moribund Capo di Monte works, close imitations of that ware have long
been made at Doccia. Indeed the bulk of the porcelain decorated with
mythological figures in low relief (more especially the larger pieces so
often seen in dealers’ shops and in salerooms) has its origin in Tuscany
rather than at Naples.
The mark, a star formed of two superimposed triangles, is derived from
the arms of the family, but this mark has often been omitted.
In the eighteenth century many kinds of ware were imitated; the plain
white porcelain is, however, the most interesting, such as the already
mentioned statuettes and the imitations of the Fukien ware, specimens of
which were sent by Sir Horace Mann to Walpole in 1760. This kind of ware
is whiter and of a more dead aspect than that made at Naples and at Buen
Retiro. In the Franks collection are specimens from an interesting
series of small medallions with portraits of the grand ducal and other
families, in white relief on a grey-blue ground. These were made at
Doccia, probably towards the end of the eighteenth century.
SPAIN
BUEN RETIRO.--During the sixteenth century we have frequent references
to the importation of Oriental porcelain into the Peninsula--the white
ware of Fukien is said to have been above all prized. In the seventeenth
century we find Portuguese travelling merchants selling porcelain at the
fair of St. Germain, and we hear that their stalls were visited by
people of quality from Paris. (_Cf._ p. 230.)
But this ware of the Far East has left little or no mark upon the
fayence or porcelain made in Spain. In the former, at least, the
influence of the nearer Saracenic East has always remained
predominant.[205] The porcelain fever that raged at times in the rest of
Europe seems to have left Spain untouched until the advent of the
half-French, half-Italian king in 1759. Charles III., who abandoned his
Neapolitan throne in that year to succeed his brother as King of Spain,
was on the whole the best of the many descendants of Louis XIV. who
ruled in France, Spain, and Italy in the eighteenth century. We have
seen that he was an enthusiastic potter, and his first care, even before
leaving Naples, was to see to the transhipping to Spain of practically
the whole of the staff, to say nothing of the moulds and other
appliances in use at the Capo di Monte factory. Don Juan Riaño, in his
_Handbook of Spanish Arts_, gives the names of nineteen modellers and
fourteen painters who sailed for Alicante in a vessel specially
chartered for this purpose. Among these Italian emigrants two names are
worthy of mention--Buonicelli--he and his son after him superintended
the new works till the end of the century--and Gricci (there were three
men of this name among the modellers), the designer of the famous
porcelain chamber at Aranjuez.
The new factory, known as La China, was erected in the garden of the
Buen Retiro, a palace in the suburbs of Madrid. Here for the next thirty
years, that is until the death of Charles III. in 1788, supported by a
large yearly grant, and surrounded by the strictest secrecy, was made
the porcelain destined for the decoration of the royal palaces and for
presentation to other courts. Only in the time of Joseph, Napoleon’s
brother, and of Ferdinand VII., was the ware from the royal works
allowed to come into the market, and this was at a period of decline.
The Buen Retiro gardens were the scene of desperate fighting between the
English and the French in the year 1812, during which the porcelain
works were completely destroyed.
We hear, at the commencement, of quarrels between the Spanish and
Italian workmen, and of breakdowns in the kilns. But Charles and his
director, Buonicelli, must soon have surmounted the preliminary
difficulties, for already, during the years 1763 to 1765 (as we learn
from an inscription on one of the slabs), Giuseppe Gricci was occupied
in decorating the porcelain chamber, the famous _Gabineto_ of the palace
at Aranjuez, which surpassed in magnificence the earlier room of the
same description at Portici. The large plaques which surround this
chamber are decorated with groups of Japanese figures in high relief,
carefully modelled and painted. Between these plaques rise tall
looking-glasses brought from the king’s new glass-works at La Granja,
and the porcelain frames of these mirrors are elaborately decorated with
fruits and flowers. There is another of these porcelain cabinets in the
Royal Palace at Madrid; this time the plaques are ornamented with
children in high relief. Here and in the other Spanish palaces, at
Aranjuez, at La Granja, and at the Escurial, may still be seen vases of
porcelain from Buen Retiro, some of them six or seven feet in height.
These vases are often set in gilt bronze mountings and filled with
branches of porcelain flowers.
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.
In its last days the factory fell under French influence, and an attempt
was made to imitate the hard paste of Sèvres with the aid of native
clays. It would seem that some of the paste made at an earlier time was
of a hybrid nature, containing magnesia, like that of Vinovo.
The factory was re-established by Ferdinand VII. after his restoration,
at the Moncloa, near Madrid, but with little success. Close at hand, at
La Florida, near the well-known Paseo, an attempt has been lately made
to revive the works. Zuluaga, the famous metal-worker, has interested
himself in these new works, but the ware made is of little interest.
The fleur-de-lis of the Bourbons, generally painted in blue under the
glaze, is the only mark that need be mentioned; it is probable that this
mark was already in use at Naples (PL. D. 67).
At Alcora, in the province of Valencia, the Conde d’Aranda had
established an important factory of artistic fayence as early as the
year 1725. Aranda played no small part in the short-lived revival of
prosperity in Spain that followed the accession of Charles III. In 1764
we find him sending to Dresden for an arcanist, and in 1774 he obtained
the services of a French expert, one Martin, from Sèvres. Each in his
turn covenanted with the count to make true porcelain, and we are told
that he sent specimens of his ware to his friend Voltaire at Ferney. Don
Juan Riaño gives a full account of this factory, but there do not seem
to be any specimens of Aranda’s wares in English collections that are
anything better than a fine fayence.
In the Museo Arqueologico at Madrid there is a large collection of
porcelain and fayence from Buen Retiro, La Moncloa, Alcora, and
Talavera.
PORTUGAL.--Some hard-paste porcelain was made at Lisbon before the year
1775, and at Vista Alegre, near Oporto, the factory started about 1790
is still carried on. Certain medallions of biscuit porcelain, in the
style of Wedgwood, have found their way into the Schreiber and Franks
collections. To judge from an inscription on a minute plaque suitable
for setting in a ring, in the latter collection, these medallions were
made at the Royal Arsenal at Lisbon in 1792.