Over the last week (plus) I have continued to chip away at my pile of reading, collect notes, and I formulated my preliminary proposal which was turned in on Tuesday October 6. In terms of where I am in my research, I would say I still have a ways to go before I ‘master’ the literature on eighteenth-century Sèvres porcelain.

This week in my senior thesis seminar, our preliminary proposals for our theses was due. For this assignment we had to detail our topic, thesis, and questions we planned to ask and answer. This assignment was very interesting and helpful for me because I had to sit down with all of my material and ask, really for the first time, what the overarching point/plan was of my thesis; what do I want it to say in the end, and how do I accomplish that? In this proposal we were also asked to submit a preliminary outline for the chapter delineation and organization for our theses–and I wanted to post mine:

{Title Page– includes title, my name, Barnard College, ©Avery Schroeder 2015

Back cover of title page– a digitally colored encyclopédie plate of workers in a porcelain factory [PART OF DIGITAL PORTION]

Introduction

-Textually illustrate what is going on in France and Europe starting at the end of the seventeenth-century tracing the beginning of European importation of East Asian porcelain as well as touching on the definition / ideals of the enlightenment which dominated the eighteenth-century.

Include the continental fascination with Chinese and Japanese porcelain:

Europeans became infatuated with Chinese and Japanese import porcelain throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth-centuries. When finance ministers realized the deficits such importation of east-Asian porcelain was creating, national efforts were made to manufacture the luxury material at home. Germany was first to produce a workable porcelain formula and France did the same soon after. The new medium of porcelain created new opportunities for chemists and artisans to invent colors. The process of inventing new colors throughout the eighteenth-century at porcelain factories like Sèvres in France and Meissen in Germany were extraordinary, because chemists were utilizing the new medium of soft-paste porcelain to formulate tones. Such tones, I argue, were both aesthetically and technically revolutionary.” (thesis statement proposal).

Include a brief introduction to Enlightenment ideals burgeoning in the first decades of the eighteenth century. Include a brief biography of Denis Diderot and emphasize the importance of the publication of his Encyclopédie to enlightenment thought during the time period that my thesis will focus on (which is roughly 1740-1790s).

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) was a crucial figure in the age of Enlightenment. He is best remembered for his role as editor of the Encyclopédie. Diderot was a practicing philosopher and écrivain (writer), as well as an art critic. He hoped his endeavors, especially the Encyclopédie, would spread knowledge throughout the public sphere. The ideals of the Enlightenment emphasized the development of individual identity through reason and empirical knowledge of the world. Among its signal achievements was The Encyclopédie, or Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts published in France in the eighteenth-century . Edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Ronde d’Alembert, it includes texts contributed by André Le Breton, Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire among others. The Encyclopédie aimed to gather and publish everything important to know about technology, science, and art.

Introduce what Sèvres porcelain is in terms of its existence in eighteenth-century France; who founded it (and introduce major individuals who ensured its early success), how it came about (will overlap a little with what the preface seeks to do in detailing the trade relations between Europe and Asia), when the manufactory’s major milestones were, and where it was/is located. This is where I will incorporate a timeline of important dates (on its own page maybe at the end of the intro).

Conception and Chemistry-

1. Soft-paste porcelain invented

Soft-paste-porcelain (pâte tendre) is artificial porcelain invented in Europe to imitate hard-paste, or the true porcelain of the East. In order to develop porcelain individuals had to undergo trial and error on a large scale because knowledge was neither public nor shared (mostly owing to the guild system structure throughout European economies). Furthermore the ingredient required to produce true porcelain (that which was imported and highly regarded from China and Japan throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) was a pure aluminum silicate known as kaolin. This is known now, but in the eighteenth-century chemists and inventors knew nothing about kaolin or where to find it. As such, soft-paste-porcelain sufficed in place of true hard-paste-porcelain; soft-paste is artificial and made with powdered glass as a substitute for the kaolin used in hard-paste porcelain. Other differences between soft and hard paste porcelain include heat resistance and translucency; soft-paste porcelain is fired at a lower temperature than true porcelain and is not as translucent as kaolin- based porcelain.

2. Vincennes castle
3. Jean-Hellot the invention of the six colors

In large part thanks to the work of Denis Diderot in his efforts to publisize scientific advancements in his Encyclopédie chemistry and physics were topics that individuals beyond university circles were able to grasp. As for the primary chemist at the Sèvres factory, Jean Hellot, who had had previous experience with chemistry, was able to experiment with firing temperatures, pigmentation mixing, and glaze application in order to formulate new colors like vert pomme, bleu celeste, jaune jonquille, bleu de roi, bleu turquin, and rose pompadour. It is imperative to understand that not only did the formulation of color creation take individuals within the Sèvres walls a lot of time, but so too did the production of porcelain wares. First the thrown ‘green ware,’ or unfired pottery, would be scheduled for firing in a furnace known as a kiln. At Sèvres, the soft-paste porcelain kilns were rectangular in shape with one firebox [see above image]. The firebox is where coal would be loaded and burned as fuel for the firing of the ceramic bodies. Depending on the shape and size of different pieces, different temperatures had to be reached and maintained for precise firing. The ‘biscuit pieces’, or fired unglazed porcelain bodies, would be let out to cool before the first round of glaze was applied. Glaze acts both as an aesthetic quality of porcelain but also serves as a sealant against penetration of liquids. In the case of the Sèvres ground colors, the glaze was mixed with fondant to assist in the fusion of the pigments during firing. In eighteenth-century porcelain speak, fondant was an ingredient that had a lower fusion point when fired such as borax or soda. The ground color pigments were applied over a majority of the ceramic bodies to provide a vibrant background on which motifs could later be added by the artisanal painters at Sèvres.

4. Weave the chemistry throughout this chapter

La Porcelain la plus Belle

1. The creative direction and invention of new shapes

The apogee of soft-porcelain at Sèvres has been dated by historians as having occurred from 1757-1782.By 1757, the six Sèvres colors had been invented and perfected, as had the soft-paste porcelain recipe. The manufactory had the backing of King Louis XV. With a state-of-the-art color palette and durable soft-paste porcelain at hand, Sèvres began producing all sorts of porcelain objects and sets of traditional shapes as well as invented new shapes to show off their artisanal magnificence. Aforementioned new shapes include decorative objects, such as the infamous elephant head vases, and new shapes for functional objects, such as potpourri vessels.

2. The role of the merchants-merciers and Madame de Pompadour
3. MADAME DE POMPADOUR
4. The mistress created a legacy, a style, a splendor, which captured the imagination of a continent.

L’Identitie

1. Identity of Sèvres once it was established as a royal holding and moved to Sèvres
2. Identity formation among the elite in France and how did Sèvres play a role in identity formation, especially for women in eighteenth-century France (incorporate role of shopping and the influence of the merchants-merciers)

Impact made through the senses

1. The Madame of the household desired Sèvres
2. She hired her favorite merchant-mercier in Paris to procure her pieces or she custom ordered a set for her home
3. What did the color you chose say about you and help visually define your family identity (ties briefly in with the identity chapter).

4. The Servants and the Masters: who used it when and how did Sèvres help revolutionize dining practices in France?

Digital Animation: Will not be part of the text but chronologically will fall here—will reference perhaps on its own page with some still images

Conclusion}

©Avery Schroeder 2015