=Peculiarities in Marking.=--For the first time in any treatment of
the subject, the potters and modellers' marks are given in a table
appended to this chapter, which the writer hopes will be found useful
in identifying early examples. These hieroglyphics, usually accompanied
by the factory mark of the three blue lines, are painters' marks, and
in the case of incised marks are representative of the modellers or
turners. It may be possible, upon further research being given to the
subject, to identify the individual marks of each painter or modeller,
and thus arrive at some more definite conclusion in regard to the
date at which these early blue-and-white pieces were made. But until
the exact list of painters at the factory, together with the dates
at which they were employed, is subjected to exhaustive research, it
is obviously impossible to establish more than the present series of
marks, with limited conclusions in regard to chronological order.
The marks now given have been specially drawn from old examples of
undoubted authenticity.
There is one peculiarity in connection with the marks found on this
early blue-and-white porcelain. The bases are frequently ground,
and the factory mark of the three blue lines, with an accompanying
painter's mark, are on the base, with little spots of glaze put over
them no bigger than a threepenny-piece. Another idiosyncrasy of
Copenhagen marks, not confined to the blue-and-white, is the almost
hidden position in which some of the marks are found. In overglaze
painted figures the three blue lines will peep from beneath the hem
of some garment. In the blue-and-white examples the mark is sometimes
found on the inside of the handle of a teapot or on a lid. In some
of the earlier pieces the blue mark has turned to black under the
action of the oven. Similarly, in the early days of experiments in
connection with the perfecting of the blue, a series of plates will be
found of exactly the same decoration and bearing the same painter's
signature; but the caprice of the fire, or the inexact knowledge of
the craftsman, has converted the blue of some of them into a very deep
blue, approaching black in tone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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