Love Restrained by the Graces

In the 18th century, porcelain was the most modern decoration because it had so recently been made for the first time in Europe. This new material was used to create objects dealing with contemporary popular themes, such as fashionable life and love. Earlier experiments in making “true” porcelain had failed, and vessels continued to be made of earthenware, like the punch bowl in an adjacent gallery (2240). Creating “true,” or hard-paste, porcelain out of feldspar and quartz became an obsession for European monarchs in their quest to compete with imported Chinese works and, later, with one another as they set up various nationalized porcelain factories.