In this connection, therefore, and knowing the Empress Catherine to be a votary of science and of art, the services made in England, France, and Denmark for imperial use were not undertaken without due consideration of this fact. The Sèvres service was embellished with the art of the schools of Boucher, Lancret, and Watteau; the Wedgwood service was frankly topographical, having painted copies, in mulberry purple, of old engravings, and Copenhagen was designedly botanical, based on the coloured illustrations of the _Flora Danica_ volumes. =The Service.=--A notable visitor to the factory at the time of the inception of the _Flora Danica_ service was the Chevalier Louis de Boisgelin, Knight of Malta, who published his _Travels through Denmark and Sweden_ in English in two volumes, at London, in 1810. The Comte Alfonse de Fortia, his fellow-traveller, had previously published _Les Voyages de deux François dans le Nord de l'Europe_. As a trustworthy account of a contemporary eye-witness the opinion of de Boisgelin is quoted:-- "The most beautiful porcelain likely to be sent for a long time from this manufacture will be a complete service upon which is to be represented, in natural colours, all the plants of the _Flora Danica_, with one upon each piece, large or small, according to the dimensions of the piece. The name of the plant will be marked under the plate, and the whole is to be classed according to the Linnæan system. The drawings are traced with such wonderful accuracy, that the most famous painters belonging to the manufactory would not undertake so difficult and slavish a piece of work." This last statement as to the mechanical accuracy required in the painting of the flora stamps it as something outside the realm of the ordinary flower painter, and indicates at once the extreme scientific definition of drawing required. The Royal Copenhagen Factory had come to be recognized by other Continental factories as excelling in the modelling of flowers, and as exhibiting truthful and natural beauty in their employment for decorative effect. The originality of the shapes of this service in comparison with those of contemporary factories shows them to possess a fine reticence which does not detract from the grand and imposing character of the imperial service. The border is a new and bold treatment with serrated leaf design, richly gilded and having three rows of gilt pearls. In point of decoration the new style is realistic, but far too scientific in treatment.