The JEWELLED SÈVRES has never found much favour in France, and the only name the French have for this decoration--_porcelaine ornée d’émaux_--is not very distinctive. A transparent, glassy, or sometimes an opaque enamel of very brilliant tint is applied in the form of little beads standing out in relief and set in gold mountings. This application of ‘_appliqués_ gems in chased gold setting,’ unless used with great delicacy and moderation, produces a tawdry and overloaded effect, above all when applied upon coloured grounds. But when these little ‘paste-jewels’ are set upon the soft white of the Sèvres _pâte tendre_ the result is sometimes very pleasing. On a cup and saucer belonging to Mr. Currie, now at South Kensington, the ruby and turquoise jewels are connected by branches of gold overlaid with a transparent green enamel (PL. XL.). On the other hand, on a large ewer and basin of turquoise, with a decoration of gold, in the ‘Londonderry Cabinet’ at Hertford House, which has the date-letter for 1768, the original design is capriciously overlaid by a series of jewelled chains which (if we are to trust the date-mark on the ewer) must certainly have been added at a later time. Indeed the manufacture of this jewelled ware seems to have been confined to the years 1780-86. When a school of painting was first established at Sèvres, it was to the fan-painters and to the miniature-painters in enamel that Bachelier turned for assistance, and we can detect the mannerisms peculiar to these two schools in the decoration of some of the earlier pieces made at Sèvres. MARKS.--By the royal decree of 1753, from which [Illustration: _PLATE XL._ JEWELLED SÈVRES] we have already quoted, it was ordered that all pieces should be marked with the well-known royal cipher, the double L, and that a letter-mark indicating the year should be added (PL. D. 56). The single letters of the alphabet carry us from 1753 to 1776; after that double letters were used till 1793, when the king’s initial was replaced by the letters R. F., with the addition of the word Sèvres. A mark of this latter kind was in use till the end of the century, after which time no more soft paste was made. Each artist marked his work with a monogram or a private sign, often suggested by a play upon the syllables of his name, as in the case of the canting arms of heraldry. For example, ‘2000’ (vingtcents) was adopted by Vincent, the famous gilder; a branch of a tree by Dubois; and, more strangely still, a triangle, the sign of the Trinity, by an artist named Dieu. These marks were placed underneath, or by the side of, the royal cipher. The marks of more than a hundred artists have been identified from the records kept at Sèvres--painters of flowers, garlands, landscapes, marines, genre-subjects, and finally gilders. A complete list of these men, with their marks, may be found in Garnier, Chaffers, and other writers on the subject.