ed together with metal screws or
mounted in bands of chased ormolu. Table services made for actual use
were usually painted on a plain white ground with the full palette of
on-glaze colours (or enamels) and much rich gilding. The decorative
pieces such as vases, candelabra, jardinieres, &c., were decorated in a
much more sumptuous fashion by covering the greater part of the piece
with a ground of one of the rich enamel colours previously mentioned,
reserving only panels in white on which delicate miniature-like
decorations of the most varied kind were subsequently painted and fired
(see fig. 52; and examples of Sevres, Plate IX.). Such collections as
the Wallace at Hertford House, or the Jones Bequest in the Victoria and
Albert Museum, show at once the variety and perfection to which the work
attained.

[Illustration: FIG. 52.--Sevres vase, _pate tendre_; green body and gilt
imitation mounting. (Victoria and Albert Museum.)]

This Sevres porcelain is entirely devoid of the broad decorative
treatment and rich full colour of any of the great kinds of fine pottery
or porcelain. Artistically considered, it has no place beside the
triumphs of the Chinese or Persian potters, or of the Italian majolists.
Its shapes are too formal, and are not sufficiently imbued with a sense
of the qualities of the material. The ground colours defy every natural
tendency of pottery colour for they are even, flawless and mechanical,
with none of the palpitating richness that comes so naturally from the
potter's processes. The paintings, whether of flowers, birds or
figure-subjects, are extraordinarily skilful regarded as miniatures, but
as examples of pottery decoration they cannot be compared to the swift,
apparently careless, brushwork of the great masters of earlier times. So
pronounced was the demand of the period for smooth even finish that such
ground colours as _gros-bleu_ and _bleu de roi_, where the colour
naturally came varied and uneven, were subsequently decorated with small
diapers or lines of gold in the form of _[oe]il de perdrix_ or
_vermicelle_, so as to produce a more regular and even effect. The most
elaborate and costly of all the varieties of old Sevres is what is known
as "jewelled Sevres," which is richly sown with imitation jewels, such
as turquoises, pearls and rubies, closely resembling the real stones.
These imitation jewels were in every case set in beautifully chased
mountings of gold, and in the museum at Sevres a