FINE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART
Foreword
We are delighted to present our Exhibition catalogue for 2004 entitled ‘Splendour in the Grass’. It is conceived as a homage to man’s continued interest in all things natural, an ephemeral array of beasts, birds and flowers, immortalised within porcelain but still regarded as symbols of the fragility of life captured and frozen for a single moment by the artists and modellers for our contemplation. Man has held a fascination for the natural world since the dawn of time for we are a single part of the wealth of the living planet and take our place within the ranks of creation itself. We ourselves spring from the grass and will eventually take our place back there within the living fabric of our planet Earth. The Exhibition charts the representation of birds, beasts and flowers within the story of porcelain itself from the beginning of the eighteenth century.
The story of porcelain began with a desperate quest that saw self professed alchemist Johann Fredrich Böttger imprisoned by Augustus the Strong of Saxony upon his foolish claims of being able to manufacture gold. However Augustus had another weakness, his passion for the porcelains from China and Japan, which came to him via the trade routes from the far east. Böttger in 1709 perfected a recipe for hard paste porcelain using white kaolin clay from Saxony and thus created porcelain in Europe.
Production began in 1710 and from the start it was perceived as a luxury material. The early production of white porcelain and brown polished stoneware illustrate silver and gold forms as well as the more simple and stylised shapes from China and Japan. Böttger employed artisans skilled in the techniques required for the cutting and polishing of rare and expensive precious and semi precious stones, for it was regarded as the right decorative treatment of the new ware, which would ultimately appeal to the wealthy society of the period.
It was with the arrival of Johann-Gregor Höroldt from the Du Paquier factory in Vienna, with his knowledge of the application of coloured enamels that led to a wealth and riot of colours. The fascination of ‘Cathay’ abounded during the 1720s and 1730s with this rich tapestry of colours into which was woven intimate and frivolous representations of Chinese figures at various activities, inhabiting stylised gardens and sharing space with exotic birds and animals within beautiful scrollwork and asymmetrical rococo cartouches. The very rare yellow ground Cup with the Spout, (No. 1) exhibits this period within the production at Meissen and shows painting in the manner of Johann Ehrenfried Stadler with typical large Chinese figures amongst flowering oriental plants. The yellow enamel was one of the most difficult to control within the firing process and was understood to be a symbol of the radiance and glory of Imperial rule, it was also an indication of the perceived value of this colour.
During the 1740s a new and fresher European style emerged, with its roots in the natural world, which culminated in luxurious natural forms and fluid rococo themes. A triumph over nature was the thought process that spurred on this interest, a deviation from the Wars that had ravaged Europe in previous times and a growing interest in Peace and Plenty which laid a taste of elegance over the tables of the ‘Quality, Nobility and Gentry’ which formed the Royal and Aristocratic society of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For example the fine ewer (No. 3) the form derived from an ancient Greek Athenian helmet form upended on a scallop shell, renaissance elements previously used in silverware mixed with the organic and painted with European ‘Kauffahrtei’ scenes in the manner of Christian Freiderich Herold.
The sauce tureen cover and stand (No.5) exhibits the taste of natural elegance in the form of the flower painting developed during this period, many designs were later copied both in essence and style for inclusion in the Ladies Amusement which was published for Robert Sayer of the Golden Buck in Fleet Street circa 1758. The style of the puce stippled flowers, reflexed petals, grasses and divergent tulips have a slightly ‘wind blown’ nature to them, their character can be clearly seen as derivation for the London flower decoration on Chelsea and from the Giles atelier during the 1750s through to the 1770s, examples of which are included within this catalogue.