Porcelain and Earthenware. 239 



The Etruscans were probably the first, who brought this art to any 

 degree of perfection in Europe. They were from Phenicia, and 

 whether it originated with their ingenious ancestors or whether it was 

 transplanted from China to Sidon and Tyre, and thence to the poet- 

 ical and picturesque regions of Etruria, neither tradition nor history 

 give any certain information. Pliny states that Praxiteles moulded 

 images and figures in clay, which were the models, and the origin of 

 statuary in marble and bronze. 



Raphael is said to have practised the art of painting on enamel in 

 a high degree of perfection. He executed the arms of Leo X. which 

 now adorn the Vatican. Several pieces of this ware are known as 

 Raphael china, and are in the cabinets of the curious. One splen- 

 did dish in particular, found in Carinthia, twenty inches in diameter, 

 bears an inscription, purporting that it was made in 1542. The sub- 

 jects are Pan and Apollo, Jupiter and Semele — Apollo surrounded 

 with nymphs and satyrs, with entwined cupids on the rim.* 



The white enameled ware made in Europe is indebted for its 

 present perfection to Bernard de Palissy, who was born at Guienne 

 in France, 1490. He became eminent for industry, learning and 

 talents — was a philosopher and naturalist, and so interested in the 

 subject of enamels, that he devoted his fortune and almost the whole 

 of his life to experiments on enameled pottery. Although he reach- 

 ed at length, the degree of perfection to which he had aimed, and * 

 published many valuable works on various subjects, indicative of sin- 

 gular genius, commanding the esteem and admiration of all classes 

 yet the fanatics of the League, persecuted him on account of his ad- 

 herence to the protestant faith ; and dragged him to the bastile at 

 90 years of age where he died. His reply to Henry III. of France, 

 is fid example of firmness which " deserves commemoration." The 

 king advised him to reconcile himself to the matter of religion, or he 

 would be left in the hands of his enemies. " Sire," said Palissy, 

 "neither your majesty, nor your whole people, have the power to 

 compel a simple potter, to bend his knee before the images which he 

 fabricates." 



The first porcelain from China, which was brought to London, 

 came in a Portuguese prize ship from India, about 1593.f The in- 

 troduction of this beautiful fabric, soon awakened a desire in the 



* One of the Duke of Brunswick's palaces, in a small village a German mile from 

 the capital, contains a large collection of Raphael china.— Vide Hanway's Travels. 

 t Annals of Commerce. 



