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 madein 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 an 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.¢ 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. 
