After the death of Böttger in 1719 there follows an intermediate period, still in a measure experimental, during which the factory was under the charge of four [Illustration: _PLATE XXXI._ MEISSEN, COLOURED ENAMELS] commissioners. The blue and white of the Chinese was imitated, but not very skilfully. They were more successful with the _café au lait_ glaze, which at that time was in great favour. It is to the Viennese painter, Johann Gregorius Herold, or Höroldt (_b._ 1696; 1720-65 at Meissen), that the credit must be given of establishing a definite school of decoration. He began, however, with the imitation of Oriental designs. At this time the Japanese Kakiyemon ware (both the paste and the pattern) was closely copied. The blue and white with Chinese designs was at length more successful, and now the _poudré_ blue and other monochrome grounds of the Chinese were also imitated. On the other hand, to this time (1730-40) also belong the earliest armorial dinner-services--those with the arms of Saxony and Poland for the electoral court, and more than one set with the arms of the Count Brühl for that pomp-loving nobleman.[157] A new direction was given to the manufacture soon after the appointment (in 1731) of Johann Joachim Kändler (1706-1775) to the place of chief modeller. He it was that, abandoning the clumsy imitations of Chinese gods and monsters, first recognised the capabilities of porcelain as a material for those little statuettes and groups of figures that we have since that time come to associate above all else with the European porcelain of the eighteenth century, and especially with that of Germany. The subjects were taken partly from the social life of the day. In part also they carried on the tradition of the ‘Italian comedy’ and of the conventional pastoral life that we find in the French art of a somewhat earlier date. The pictures of Watteau and Lancret were much sought after at that time by the princely collectors in Germany, and a few choice works of these artists, as well as many somewhat muddy copies and imitations of native origin, may be seen in the gallery at Dresden.