La Céramique Ancienne et Moderne

Abstract

THE author of the second section of this work, M. Garnier, is already well known as a writer on ceramic art. Filling the important post of Keeper of the Sèvres Museum, he enjoys ample opportunities of becoming familiar with the development of earthenwares and porcelains and the characteristics of the several kinds. But a couple of hundred pages illustrated by fifty poor process-blocks have not afforded M. Gamier the chance of treating his subject adequately. The essay by M. Guignet on materials and manufacture, though far too slight and unequal in treatment, is good so far as it goes. Unfortunately, he omits much that one expected to find in his pages, e.g. the process and rationale of salt-glazing, while he repeats (p. 86) the exploded theory that Josiah Spode, about the year 1800, first introduced bone-ash into the body of English porcelain. Several other Continental writers on ceramics, when they give any account of English porcelain and earthenware, do not fail to reproduce this error. But in point of fact this phosphatic porcelain, called by the French Porcelaine tendre naturelle ou Anglaise, dates back to the year 1748, and was made largely at Bow, and at other English china factories long before the time of Spode. Numerous chemical analyses of authentic specimens have proved this point without the shadow of a doubt. The volume would have gained greatly in scientific interest had the authors introduced plates representing the microscopic structure of the chief porcelains and wares One such plate only is given, and that is poor.

La Céramique Ancienne et Moderne.

Par E. Guignet E. Gamier. Pp. 311. (Paris: F. Alcan, 1899.)