IMITATIONS OF ORIENTAL PORCELAIN
Chinese potters imitated Chinese potters and their productions for
hundreds of years, but it has remained for later times to produce such
imitations in hard paste as to be almost beyond detection, except by
the expert. Closely studied, however, there are certain differences--a
peculiarity of the tint of the paste, a loss of brilliance in the
colour--which reveal the European origin. M. Sampson, of Paris, has
been responsible for deceiving more beginners than perhaps any other
maker by his wonderful imitations of Oriental enamel porcelain. In our
own early English factories we often met with imitations of Chinese
porcelain with regard to decoration. For instance, the early blue and
white Worcester, the red and blue under the glaze Worcester, and many
other patterns were direct imitations from the Chinese; in fact, the
square mark used upon Worcester china was only a copy of a mandarin's
seal, and other Oriental characters are to be found as marks upon
Worcester china, such as the disguised numerals, which, more recently,
have been ascribed to Caughley. Of course, the soft paste of Worcester
makes the imitation very easy to detect. The Dresden factory, which
brought Chinese style into prominence in Europe, in its oldest
specimens, produced a hard paste with purely Oriental decoration, and
copied even the intricate borders and medallions in Chinese style.
Under the patronage of Augustus Rex, otherwise Augustus the Strong,
Elector of Saxony, Dresden china became celebrated.
Coming again to later times, we find that at Herend, in Hungary, a
manufacturer named Fischer, at about 1839, made a special feature of
the imitation of Oriental porcelain, and his finest specimens are
most deceptive. It is a great shame that pieces from this factory
are so frequently used fraudulently by unscrupulous dealers. Again,
at Talavera, near Toledo, in the later eighteenth century, perfect
imitations of Oriental china were made, which, even as imitations, are
valued everywhere for the beauty of the glaze and brilliance of the
colour.
It is the slavish attention and too faithfully carrying out the detail
that reveals the forgery to the expert. On this point one might almost
say that the very skilful forgery of a five pound Bank of England note
would deceive an expert, but there is always some apparently trivial
point and detail, either omitted or added, which makes the forgery
clear to those who really know.
Although various marks were copied in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries from porcelain belonging to earlier periods, it was not done
with the idea of forgery or deception, but as a mark of reverence
and appreciation of former masters. The mark most copied was in the
reign of Yung-ching, when the Ching-hwa mark was often introduced into
self-colour pieces.
It may further interest students to learn that many examples of the
old porcelain, which are broken and yet put together without any of
the portions being lost, are the result of the duty which was levied
in the beginning of the eighteenth century on porcelain imported into
England. Perfect specimens were liable to heavy charges, damaged ones
came in free, and as at that time the values were in all probability
what is paid to-day for a good modern plate or vase, or even less,
pieces wanted for decoration were broken without any compunction, the
pieces saved, and afterwards stuck together. Such examples are well
worth acquiring, and the fact of the damage reduces the price, but so
long as there are no portions missing, or the original beauty of the
decoration impaired, the collector will be well advised not to pass
such articles by on account of the break as there are many very fine
examples which were thus ruthlessly treated.
XXII
SYMBOLICAL
DESIGNS