Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1885 — Dutch Copies of Chinese Porcelains. [ARTICLE]

Dutch Copies of Chinese Porcelains.

Toward the end of the seventeenth century the potters of Bouen and of Delft found it necessary to protect themselves against the Oriental invasion which at that time threatened extinction to their trade, and could think of nothing better than to copy as well as they might the Chinese designs and manner of working. In this way they gained a degree of skill that many of them afterward used in turning the more slightly decorated Chinese porce* lains among the constantly increasing importations into something like the more richly decorated and therefore costlier ones. At first their object in doing this may have been to experiment on the hard Chinese paste before trying the same colors on the soft false porcelain that had already been invented in France; but their attempts were not long confined, if they ever were, to this justifiable end. There soon grew up a new industry, which had for its purpose to enrich, to suit the taste of purchasers, those pieces of Chinese ware of which the decoration was considered too simple. In the presence of a collection of veritable Chinese works of high class it is easy to detect the halting and heavy touch, the pale coloring tending to brown and purple, and the predilection for rounded forms and effects of, aerial perspective of the European artist.—!?. Iliordan, in Harper's Magazine.