Of this latter character is the Sèvres china. There are manufactures of this name of a quality that brings them within the reach of moderate fortunes, it is true; but one obtains no idea of the length to which luxury and taste have been pushed in this branch of art without examining the objects made especially for the king, who is in the habit of distributing them as presents among the crowned heads and his personal favourites. After the ware has been made with the greatest care and of the best materials, artists of celebrity are employed to paint it. You can easily imagine the value of these articles, when you remember that each plate has a design of its own, beautifully executed in colours, and presenting a landscape or an historical subject that is fit to be framed and suspended in a gallery. One or two of the artists employed in this manner have great reputations, and it is no uncommon thing to see miniatures in gilded frames which, on examination, prove to be on porcelain. Of course the painting has been subject to the action of heat in the baking. As respects the miniatures, there is not much to be said in their favour. They are well drawn and well enough coloured; but the process and the material give them a glossy, unnatural appearance, which must prevent them from ever being considered as more than so many _tours de force_ in the arts. But on vases, dinner-sets, and all ornamental furniture of this nature, in which we look for the peculiarities of the material, they produce a magnificence of effect that I cannot describe. Vases of the value of ten or fifteen thousand francs, or even of more money, are not uncommon; and at the exhibition there was a little table, the price of which I believe was two thousand dollars, that was a perfect treasure in its way.
Busts, and even statues, I believe, have been attempted in this branch of art. This of course is enlisting the statuary as well as the painter in its service. I remember to have seen, when at Sèvres, many busts of the late Duc de Berri in the process of drying, previously to being put into the oven. Our cicerone on that occasion made us laugh by the routine with which he went through his catalogue of wonders. He had pointed out to us the unbaked busts in a particular room, and on entering another apartment, where the baked busts were standing, he exclaimed--"Ah! voilà son Altesse Royale toute cuite." This is just the amount of the criticism I should hazard on this branch of the Sèvres art, or on that which exceeds its legitimate limits--"Behold his Royal Highness, ready cooked."