Porcelain of distinctive character was made at Chantilly, where a factory was founded in 1725 by Louis-Henri of Bourbon, duc de Conde. Here for the first twenty years or so the material was singular in being covered with a glaze made opaque with oxide of tin At its best Chantilly is of a beautiful creamy white colour. "Kakiemon" patterns were freely copied in designs of great charm. The Meissen styles of flower-painting (q.v.) and the formal "Indian" and naturalistic "German" flowers were adapted in the French taste, as were some of the figure-models of the same factory. In the later Chantilly, coloured grounds were imitated from Sevres and the tin-glaze was given up ; slight decora tion in underglaze blue was favoured for cheaper wares. The factory ceased to make soft-paste about the end of the cen tury.
The factory at Mennecy-Villeroy, near Paris, was a continua tion of one in the Rue de Charonne in Paris, founded in 1735 by Francois Barbin, who removed his establishment to Mennecy in 1748 to place it under the patronage of Louis Francois de Neuf vile, duc de Villeroy. The earliest of Barbin's productions were in Rouen-St. Cloud style, but later a great variety of small ob jects was made and enamelled in colours of a singular freshness, amongst which a purplish rose-pink is prominent. At its best, Mennecy porcelain is of unsurpassed quality, mellow in tone and texture and of a warm white colour. Some charming figures were made. The factory was removed in 1773 to Bourg-la-Reine and ceased to make porcelain about 179o.
The beauty of material characteristic of the French soft-pastes was achieved in the highest degree in the productions of the royal factory at Vincennes, which was removed to Sevres, between Paris and Versailles, in 1756. This factory was established in 1738, under the patronage of Orry de Fulvy, by two workmen named Dubois, who, however, failed to produce porcelain. A workman named Gravant eventually succeeded, in and a company was formed with a subvention from Louis XV., who finally in 1759 took over the factory, which enjoyed certain exclusive privileges (such as the use of gilding) amounting to a monopoly. The Royal proprietorship ended, with the Revolution, in 1793, but the establishment has continued under State control to the present. day. The Vincennes productions at first consisted chiefly of por celain flowers in imitation of those of Meissen, intended for mounting in ormolu. Meissen styles of painting were copied in this early period, though the forms, largely in rococo style, were designed by the court-goldsmith Duplessis. Jean-Jacques Bache lier supervised the painting and gilding, whilst the chemist Hellot was in charge of the technical side. Painting in panels reserved on a coloured or diapered ground enriched with gilding, soon became the characteristic Sevres decoration, and the succession of the ground colours is the chief feature in the chronology of the great period of 4o years from 1749 onwards. The dark gros bleu, prob
ably imitating Chinese powdered-blue, was introduced in 1749 and abandoned in favour of the brighter bleu de roi about 1756. Turquoise-blue (bleu celeste), yellow (jaune jonquille) and green grounds made their appearance in 1752, 1753 and 1756. The rose Pompadour (miscalled in England rose du Barry), in vented by Chrouet, appeared in 1757 and went out of fashion in seven years. The favourite painting in monochrome (en camaieu) was at first generally in crimson, later in blue. Par ticulars of many of the painters and the marks used by them may be found in several books of reference. Late in the period, about 1780, an enameller named Cotteau invented the so-called jewelled decoration in which drops of coloured enamel were fused over gilding. Glazed and coloured figures were made in the early years of the factory in rivalry with Meissen, but about 1751 Bachelier introduced biscuit or unglazed porcelain as a medium for novel work for which the painter Boucher made designs to be executed by Blondeau and others. The sculptors Falconet and la Rue in the earlier period, and Pajou and Boizot in the later, created many models for execution in Sevres biscuit. The influ ence of Boucher is apparent throughout in the painting and modelling, whilst the so-called Louis Seize neo-classical style began to replace the rococo soon after the transfer to Sevres in 1756. For technical skill and perfection, and for delicacy and taste (if not for more vital qualities) Sevres porcelain is unsur passed. Soft-paste at all times has the merit of absorbing enamel colours into its easily-fusible glaze, and this is nowhere more evident than on Sevres china.
Though soft-paste was the medium of the finest Sevres pro ductions, hard-paste was made occasionally (from kaolin found after long search at St. Yrieix near Limoges) as early as 1769 and finally superseded the other altogether in 1804, when the newly appointed director Brongniart gave up the manufacture of the more costly material with a view to repairing the financial dis tress of the factory, caused by the Revolution. Hard-paste be came the medium of a style marked by a severe and even pom pous classicism, shared also by a number of other factories which had sprung up in the latter part of the i8th century in Paris and the neighbourhood, largely under the patronage of members of the Royal family. Rue Thiroux, La Courtille, Rue de Bondy ("Manufacture d'Angouleme") and Rue Popincourt (Nast's fac tory) were the chief. Other French factories making hard-paste and equally concerned to imitate Sevres, were at Lille, Etiolles, La Seynie, Boissette, Limoges and Valen,ciennes.