To the second class of blue and gray stone-ware with salt glaze belong some of the best specimens of the art (Figs. 289 and 290). They date from 1500 to 1620, after which came the decline. The Bavarian town of Creussen made a peculiar stone-ware ornamented with colored reliefs. Of this we have samples in the “Apostle” mugs, so called from the reliefs surrounding them, and in a series of jugs with hunting scenes. These belong to the seventeenth century. The Böttcher stone-ware will be noticed under porcelain, to the invention of which in Germany it was the first step. PORCELAIN. Böttcher.--His First Productions.--Meissen Porcelain.--Decoration.--Best Days of Meissen.--Its Decline.--Vienna.--Höchst.--Fürstenburg.--Höxter.--Frankenthal. --Nymphenburg.--Berlin.--Holland.--Weesp.--Loosdrecht.--The Hague.--Switzerland.--Zürich.--Nyon. It will always be the distinguishing honor of Germany that the Saxon Böttger, or Böttcher, was the discoverer, for Europe, of a true kaolinic natural porcelain. The circumstances have already been detailed (see p. 52). While Böttcher was prosecuting his experiments in 1708, he had the furnace filled with trial pieces, which were fired for several days before a piece was withdrawn. A teapot was at length taken out and thrown into cold water. It was not porcelain, however, but a red stone-ware, very hard, and with a metallic ring when struck. It was called “red porcelain,” probably to suit the wishes of the experimenter and of his royal patron. A teapot of this ware has been sold in England for sixteen pounds sterling. A very good example of it is now in the possession of Mr. Davis Collamore, of New York (Fig. 291), who was fortunate enough to pick it up in one of his European tours in quest of rare “bits.” It is undecorated, and shows admirably the rusty red color of Böttcher’s experimental stone-ware. Others of his early essays are almost black in color and are painted in relief. Several pieces are in the Metropolitan Museum. [Illustration: Fig. 291.--Böttcher Stone-ware. (D. Collamore.)] [Illustration: Fig. 292.--Meissen Porcelain. Blue Festoon, Pink Rosette. 1709-1726. (F. Robinson Coll.)]