In the notice of the spring sale of 1760, Sprimont sings the praises of ‘a few pieces of some new colours that have been found this year at a very large expense, incredible labour and close application.’ Among these new colours we must probably reckon the beautiful claret or deep purplish crimson, the one colour of our English porcelain that has never been surpassed or even equalled on the Continent. It differs from the contemporary _rose Pompadour_ not only by the greater intensity of its hue, but by being a transparent colour. This claret is, of course, derived from the purple of Cassius, and the peculiar tint is said to be due to the addition to the gold of a small amount of silver. Among the other colours introduced at this time was probably a blue made in imitation of the famous turquoise of Sèvres. This blue is very rare as a ground colour at Chelsea, and the tint is generally greenish and opaque. It is found at its best on a large vase in the British Museum with open-work cover and handles. In a diluted form the turquoise blue is often found as a wash upon the drapery of statuettes. The _rose Pompadour_ of Sèvres was also imitated at a later date, but not very successfully. This is the time of the more ambitious vases, with a monochrome ground generally of deep blue and reserved panels painted with pastoral or mythological subjects, or with fantastic ‘exotic’ birds and flowers. The painting, even in the finest examples, never attained the delicacy of the Sèvres prototype, and it is often lamentably inefficient, but at the same time this very rudeness of execution sometimes adds to the decorative effect of the _ensemble_. These vases are above all distinguished by the strangely contorted shapes that Sprimont so loved to give to the handles, covers, and feet. All these points are well illustrated in the vases (made in the years 1762 and 1763) that Dr. Garnier gave to the Foundling Hospital and to the British Museum. The painting on these specimens is particularly bad and heavy. The mythological subjects, in the style of Boucher, on the famous _garniture_ with claret ground, now belonging to Lord Burton, show a greater delicacy--in execution at least. This exaggerated rococo treatment--in the extreme forms even the bilateral symmetry is abandoned--was doubtless suggested by the forms of the ormolu mountings (for handles and feet especially) then much in vogue.[222] To a somewhat earlier date belong the moulded reproductions of animals, vegetables, and fruit so well represented in the Schreiber collection. In the case of some of the models of birds, the plumage is admirably reproduced, and in a sufficiently bold style. Notice especially some covered dishes in the form of partridges and doves. There was a sale of these ‘Chelsea Tureens in the shape of hen and chickens, swans, rabbits, carp, etc.,’ in 1756.