re to be found examples
of the punches and other tools used in making these mounts. On account
of the enormous expense involved in the production of such costly
triumphs of skill, examples of jewelled Sevres are rare even in the best
collections, but the English student is fortunate in the fact that the
Wallace collection contains a considerable number of them.

[Illustration: Sevres Potters' marks, 1753 and 1772.]

Many reasons--the prestige attaching to a Royal Manufactory, the
knowledge that the porcelain was produced regardless of cost, the
mechanical perfection of its colours, gilding and decoration, as well as
the fact that the glassy porcelain was abandoned as too costly and risky
after about 1780--have all conspired to raise the prices which modern
collectors are prepared to pay for fine examples of _vieux Sevres_. It
is doubtful whether even the prices paid for paintings by old masters
have advanced so rapidly as those paid for Sevres porcelain of the best
period. In the 'seventies of the 19th century it was deemed worthy of
remark that a sum of L10,000 should have been paid at public auction for
three old Sevres vases; thirty years later one such piece would probably
fetch the same price. It should be added that the extravagant prices now
paid for Sevres porcelain, which is much more a triumph of technical
than of artistic skill, have led to an extensive system of "faking" and
even forging specimens which are purchased at high prices by amateurs.

Beautiful as the old Sevres porcelain was, those who were responsible
for its manufacture could not fail to recognize that the porcelain made
at Meissen and other German factories was both harder and whiter in
substance, more truly resembling the oriental porcelain in every
respect. It was also known that these German porcelains were not so
difficult, and therefore so costly to manufacture as the French, and all
these causes combined to make the directorate of Sevres unremitting in
their efforts to discover in France natural materials analogous to those
used by the German and Chinese potters. Pere d'Entrecolles, the famous
Jesuit missionary, had forwarded to France long before an account of the
methods used by the Chinese, as well as samples of the materials they
employed; and after many years' research Millot and Macquer discovered
the precious materials at St Yrieix near Limoges (see Auscher, _History
of French Porcelain_, pp. 77-81). The first experimental pieces