STRASSBURG.--Without committing oneself to any political _parti-pris_, we may conveniently say a word of the ceramic history of Strassburg at this point, although in the eighteenth century the town already belonged to France.[164] The Hannong family had here from the beginning of the eighteenth century been making fayence, and this family is of interest to us as forming a link between the porcelain of Germany and that of France. Charles François Hannong, probably with the assistance of a German arcanist, attempted the manufacture of hard porcelain as early as 1721. It was his son Paul Antoine who first entered into negotiations with the French for the sale of the secret of making hard porcelain. This was in 1753. Not only did these negotiations come to nothing, but, as we have already mentioned, Hannong was hampered in his attempts to establish a porcelain factory in his native town. In 1755 we find him with the elector-palatine at Frankenthal. After his death in 1760, the factory at Strassburg was carried on for a time by his son, Pierre Antoine, but in 1766 the latter went to France and started a factory first at Vincennes, and later in the Faubourg St. Lazare, under the patronage of the Comte d’Artois. Later still we find him employed at the Vinovo works in Piedmont. His eldest son, Joseph Adam Hannong, struggled on for some time at Strassburg under the protection of the local magnate, the Cardinal de Rohan. Thus for more than sixty years four generations of this family played a prominent part in the dissemination of the knowledge of hard porcelain in Europe, although the actual wares made by them are of little importance.[165] The factory at the adjacent town of Niderwiller appears to have derived its inspiration directly from Meissen. Porcelain was here made from German clay as early as the sixties. At a later time the works belonged to the Comte de Custine, and some well modelled biscuit figures, the clay for which was obtained from Limoges, were then turned out. SWITZERLAND.--A good deal of porcelain was made in the eighteenth century both at Zurich and at Nyon, on the Lake of Geneva. The various wares are well represented in several of the local Swiss museums. The porcelain of ZURICH belongs essentially to the Saxon group. The hard, greyish or dead-white paste, and the flowers or landscapes carefully painted in opaque colours, point at once to the origin of the ware. The factory was established as early as 1763, with the assistance of an arcanist, one Spengler, from Höchst. The Swiss poet, Solomon Gessner, took a great interest in the works, himself painting landscapes on several pieces. From Ludwigsburg also came Sonnenschein, to model some clever and lifelike figures. A coral-coloured ware made at this time was much admired. The Zurich factory did not long survive the French invasion: it was closed in 1803. This porcelain is marked in blue under the glaze with a capital Z of German form (PL. D. 49).