The state of warfare in which Germany was plunged about the middle of the century was a serious check to the progress of the works. When peace was restored in 1763, a new spirit began to manifest itself, contemporaneously with the addition to the staff of the French modeller Acier. The change was completed under the directorship of Count Camillo Marcolini, which lasted from 1774 to 1814. Just as in music, an art in which Germany enjoyed at that time an unquestioned supremacy, the sprightly melodies of Haydn gave place to the graver harmonies of Beethoven, so in porcelain too the altered mood of the age was reflected. Florid rococo forms were abandoned and replaced by the severer contours and simpler decoration of the classic style of Louis XVI. The philosophic sentimentalism of the day was not interested in the pretty but aimless frivolities of the Watteau school, and subjects of an entirely different order were chosen to fill panels and medallions. A service at South Kensington is painted with a series of careful miniatures in illustration of Goethe’s _Sorrows of Werther_, a work in which the spirit of the age is characteristically expressed. Other favourite themes were Angelica Kauffmann’s renderings of the more sentimental stories of classical mythology.
The Meissen vase chosen for illustration in Plate 20, one of a set of three in the Jones Bequest, dates from the earlier years of Count Marcolini’s management. The slight decoration of dainty and pleasing effect allows the fine qualities of the paste to be fully appreciated. The various ornamental features embody in characteristic manner the ideas of the age. The symmetrical amphora form, the square architectural plinth, the wreaths of oak on the cover and foot, point to the new interest awakened in ancient, more particularly Roman, art by the publication of the antiquities of Herculaneum; the garlands and festoons of forget-me-nots recall the sentiment of an age that amused itself with the study of the “language of flowers.”
The Meissen factory had not long been working before its success suggested the introduction of the manufacture of porcelain in other German states, and in less than fifty years from the date of the royal patent of Augustus the Strong, a porcelain factory was considered a necessary adjunct to the Court of even the minor German rulers. The influence of Meissen is everywhere apparent, but individuality shown in various directions by a few of the rivals entitles them to special mention. The seniority amongst these belongs to VIENNA, where a factory was set up as early as 1718 by a Dutchman with the help of workmen who had escaped from Meissen; in 1744 it became an imperial institution. The style of the wares followed closely on that of the parent works, until financial embarrassments led to a complete reorganisation under Baron von Sorgenthal in 1784. The change was heralded by the adoption of severely angular shapes, and of romantic or mythological subjects pictorially rendered, within elaborate borders composed of classical motives carried out in rich highly-burnished gilding on panels of gorgeous colouring; the true qualities of porcelain were forgotten in the effort to arrive at the highest pitch of sumptuous richness.