When we come nearer home, to the European porcelain of the eighteenth century, many obscure points still remain to be cleared up. The currently accepted accounts of Böttger’s great discovery present many difficulties. At Sèvres, why was the use of the newly discovered _rose Pompadour_ so soon abandoned? And finally, in England, what were we doing during the long years between the time of the early experiments of Dr. Dwight and the great outburst of energy in the middle of the eighteenth century? The illustrations have been chosen for the most part from specimens in our national collections. I take this opportunity of thanking the officials in charge of these collections for the facilities they have given to me in the selection of the examples, and to the photographer in the reproduction of the pieces selected. To Mr. C. H. Read of the British Museum, and to Mr. Skinner of the Victoria and Albert Museum, my thanks are above all due. To the latter gentleman I am much indebted for the trouble he has taken, amid arduous official duties, in making arrangements for photographing not only examples belonging to the Museum, scattered as these are through various wide-lying departments, but also several other pieces of porcelain at present deposited there by private collectors. To these gentlemen, finally, my thanks are due for permission to reproduce examples of their porcelain--to Mr. Pierpont Morgan, to Mr. Fitzhenry, to Mr. David Currie, and above all to my friend Mr. George Salting, who has interested himself in the selection of the objects from his unrivalled collection. The small collection of marks at the end of the book has no claim to originality. The examples have been selected from the catalogues of the Schreiber collection at South Kensington, and from those of the Franks collections of Oriental and Continental china. For permission to use the blocks my thanks are due, as far as the first two books are concerned, to H. M.’s Stationery Office and to the Education Department; in the case of the last work, to Mr. C. H. Read, who, I understand, himself drew the original marks for Sir A. W. Franks’s catalogue. In a general work of this kind much important matter has had to be omitted. That is inevitable. I only hope that specialists in certain definite parts of the wide field covered will not find that I have committed myself to rash or ungrounded generalisations. Let them remember that the carefully guarded statements and the reservations suitable to a scientific paper would be out of place in a work intended in the main for the general public. E. D. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE, v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, xii SELECTED LIST OF WORKS ON PORCELAIN, xxvi KEY TO THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST, xxxiii