CHAPTER XVI

THE HARD-PASTE PORCELAIN OF GERMANY--(_continued_).

VIENNA--BERLIN--HÖCHST--FÜRSTENBERG--LUDWIGSBURG-- NYMPHENBURG--FRANKENTHAL--FULDA--STRASSBURG.

THE HARD AND SOFT PASTES OF SWITZERLAND, HUNGARY, HOLLAND, SWEDEN, DENMARK, AND RUSSIA.

In spite of the elaborate precautions that were taken--the oaths of secrecy, the military guards that accompanied the relays of china-clay to the fortress at Meissen in which the works were established--by the middle of the eighteenth century, at nearly all the courts of Germany, imperial, royal, or serene, we find a porcelain manufactory already in full work. It was the fashion of the day, and took its place, like the opera company or the stud, in the equipment of an up-to-date _Residenz-Stadt_. Only one or two of these princely factories survived the time of turmoil at the end of the century and the Napoleonic invasions. In no single one of the works can we find that any fresh line was struck out or any important improvement made either in technique or in design. The products of these different factories are often to be distinguished only by the marks they bear, and these marks are as often as not forgeries. We shall therefore confine ourselves to a somewhat summary description, pointing out especially the relations of the different centres to one another. The starting of a new manufactory generally depended upon the successful bribing of some official or foreman of works: at the beginning such aid was sought from Meissen, but later on the assistance came from Vienna or from Höchst, so that on this ground the relation of the works to one another might be represented by a rough kind of genealogical tree.

VIENNA.--The beginnings of the factory a