A Book of Porcelain

A Book of Porcelain presents fine examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum. A plate caption describes a Chinese jar of the period of the Ming dynasty, decorated in colours of the demi-grand feu, with chased brass cover of Persian workmanship. A second plate caption describes a vase, Sèvres, given in 1780 by Gustavus III. of Sweden to Catherine II. of Russia, decorated by Morin, Fontaine, and Le Guay on a bleu de roi ground.

The text says the prince de Condé chose for his director one Ciquaire Cirou, who appears to have been a faïence-maker, and obtained royal recognition by a grant of letters patent in 1735. The accompanying text says it does not pretend to be a general treatise on porcelain, or even an exhaustive summary of its history. A passage says no piece of this early Venetian porcelain is known to exist at the present day, and that the porcelain invented at Florence about 1575 by Francesco de’ Medici, the second Grand Duke of Tuscany, is the earliest European porcelain of which specimens still survive.