As a service it is magnificent. It amply fulfils the great and inspired conceptions of its originators. Luplau was still a modeller, skilful and practised in his own field of dignified, restrained, and well-balanced forms compelling admiration, and the bouquets and floral ornaments were modelled by Sören Preus. In painted decoration the scientific atmosphere is only too evident. Ba er's pencil too faithfully followed the botanical volumes of the _Flora Danica_. Each piece is different; the whole gamut of the flora was covered, but each subject was obviously not equally suitable for decorative effect. True decorative art, however realistic, is alien from scientific exactitude. The plants with their roots, leaves, and cross-sections of the stems evade decorative treatment. The scientific spirit is further exhibited in the written Latin names and references to the text of _Flora Danica_ appearing at the back of each piece. But it must be reiterated that it was intended as a present to a votary of Von Linné, and the scientific study of nature had challenged the capture of nature by art. The magnificence of the great service is the magnificence of a great series of ceramic volumes, reflecting in another medium the triumphs of the illustrated volumes of the _Flora Danica_. It is the first instance of the Copenhagen factory searching for designs in a domain foreign to the true natural sources of inspiration proper to the artist designer on porcelain. Another and later instance is the series of imitative porcelain statuettes after Thorvaldsen's creations in marble. CHAPTER VI EARLY BLUE-AND-WHITE UNDERGLAZE PAINTED CHAPTER VI EARLY BLUE-AND-WHITE UNDERGLAZE PAINTED The "Danish Pattern"--The Bornholm Clay period--Peculiarities in marking--Table of Marks (old blue-and-white underglaze painted porcelain). The blue-and-white underglaze painted porcelain of Copenhagen has become recognized as characteristic of the royal factory and of Denmark. The original design is of Chinese origin, in common with other forms of decoration, centuries old, followed by all European potters in early days when the art of making true porcelain was discovered in the West. But, like many another transplantation in art, it found congenial atmosphere, and has become national to the country of its adoption. The light, graceful plant _motif_ shown in the blue-and-white painted fluted porcelain is as welcome a sight to Danes the world over as the slender twin spires of Roskilde Cathedral, where the kings of Denmark sleep in eternal peace. The "Danish pattern" bears in a measure a certain relationship to works in literature where the translation is greater than the original. This is especially true when the work of a decadent period is translated into the richer tongue of a more golden age. The English Bible translated in the time of James I is richer in its fine wealth of prose than the "original sacred tongues."