Fig. 127 shows some choice small pieces from Mr. Wales's collection The centre flower-dish is very finely painted with birds, and the meandering lip, intended to confine the flowers, is peculiar.
The two cups and saucers on the right are very richly gilded, the compartments containing delicate flower-painting.
The cup and saucer on the left is one of the best examples of the Marcolini period; the gilded edges are exquisitely done, and the flowers, painted in tender browns and greens--not in high colors or in the colors of Nature--are charming.
Many pieces of the old Dresden porcelain (and of modern work
[Illustration: FIG. 128.--_Dresden Vase._]
also) are elaborately decorated with rococo scrolls and flower-work in relief, applied upon candelabra, chandeliers, vases, cups, etc. Unsympathetic buyers will be apt to seize upon these pieces, and they are most common in ordinary collections; but they are very far from being the best or the most interesting. This style of work was introduced and practised by Kändler (1731 to 1763) at the period when the best works were produced; but this style of work is not itself the best, though it may be the most costly.
In Fig. 128 we present one of the most elaborate and magnificent examples of this excessive decoration. Nothing is spared; the painting is most delicate, the flowers most intricate, the figures all most perfectly modeled; and yet upon one it produces satiety. It is overdone. Like an overdressed woman, we have lost the divine creation in her clothes.
In Fig. 129 may be seen a style of Dresden work which has had much popularity; it is costly, for it shows great difficulties well surmounted. But do you care for it as you would for a fine plate or an ample punch-bowl?
It is a candelabrum sold at the Bernal collection, and is thus described: "A pair of superb candelabra, each formed of a female draped figure bearing scroll-branches for five lights, seated on pedestals, round which Cupids are supporting shields-of-arms. These magnificent objects of decoration are twenty-four inches high."
The price was two hundred and thirty-one pounds sterling (eleven hundred and fifty-five dollars).
It may not be amiss to hint to incipient collectors that not all Dresden porcelain is equally beautiful or desirable--which is true of the paintings of Raphael or Murillo--and that every collector should consider the intrinsic excellence of each piece, rather than the mark or name of the factory.