of this
French porcelain, similar in material to the German and Chinese, appear
to have been made about 1769; but it was some years after this before
the manufacture of the new product was firmly established, and then to
the end of the 18th century more and more of the hard porcelain and less
of the glassy porcelain was made at Sevres. Speaking broadly, we might
say that after 1780 comparatively little of the original French
porcelain was made in France; and from that time to this practically all
French porcelain has been of the same type as the German porcelain, viz.
made with china clay and felspathic rock. This technical change in the
nature of the materials had a profound influence on the artistic
qualities of French porcelain, and the change was doubtless accentuated
by the neo-classical rage which followed on the discovery of Herculaneum
and Pompeii. The influence of antique vase shapes and of modern
renderings of Greek motives in design spread over Europe like a plague,
and whether in France, Germany or England the last quarter of the 18th
and the first quarter of the 19th century mark a definite period in
pottery design and decoration. The introduction of hard-paste porcelain
rendered the manufacture of large vases and other pieces possible; and
after 1780 we find the manufactory at Sevres engaged in the production
of enormous vases 5 or 6 ft. in height, a manufacture which has been
continued there to this day. About the same time, too, we find the first
production of large plaques or slabs of porcelain on which copies of
well-known pictures were painted in enamel colours. The earliest of
these slabs were in soft-paste porcelain, but in this material it was
only possible to make them of quite modest dimensions; with the
introduction of hard-paste porcelain very large slabs were manufactured,
and a series of these are to be seen in the museum at Sevres.

The most artistic of all the productions of Sevres are undoubtedly the
"biscuit" figures and groups. These were modelled with great skill by
many of the best French sculptors of the day, such as Pajou, Pigalle,
Clodion, La Rue, Caffieri, Falconet, Boizot, Julien, Le Riche, &c. The
best of these Sevres "biscuits" have a real artistic value which places
them in a class quite apart from the German porcelain figures made at
Meissen, Frankenthal and Hochst.

_Paris_.--Although during the reign of Louis XV. many privileges and
prerogatives had been given to the S