CHAPTER VII

THE SUCCESSORS OF MÜLLER

(1820-1880)

_THE DECADENCE_

Battle of Copenhagen, 1801--Nelson's Letters to Lady Hamilton--The so-called Empire style--The Thorvaldsen period.

The great days of the Müller _régime_ had come to an end. A quarter of a century of brilliant success was followed by twice that length of gloom. The Arctic night of early nineteenth-century years had settled on art. Müller's retirement in 1801 was not the only contributory cause of the decadence of the factory. The French Revolution had shaken Europe from end to end. The Napoleonic Wars following in its wake disturbed serenity and repose in art and letters. The fortunes of States were in the melting-pot, and destiny was "moulding men in plastic circumstance." The storm cyclone had more than once centred around Denmark. The century opened ill for the fortunes of the factory. In April 1801 a British fleet entered the Sound and engaged in a great naval battle with the Danish fleet. "I have been in a hundred and five engagements," said Nelson, "but that of to-day is the most terrible of them all." The genius of Napoleon conceived the idea of "conquering the sea by the land," to quote his own words. Paul I of Russia became Napoleon's ally and tool. Russia brought pressure to bear on Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia, and these Powers were federated as the "League of Armed Neutrality," with the avowed purpose of challenging the maritime supremacy of England. Prussia marched troops into Hanover. Russia seized all British ships in Russian ports, and every port from the North Cape to Gibraltar was closed against the British flag. Behind this combination was the brain of Napoleon.

The story of the battle is well known. The Danes fought stubbornly. The love of the fatherland and the flag, the split flag of old Denmark--the _Dannebrog_--a white cross on a red field, was stimulated by the poets of the day. Old memories were awakened of the days of Juel, Hvidfeldt, and Tordenskjold. Workmen, peasants from the farms, and merchants from the city hastened to enroll. The students of the university, a thousand strong, enlisted to a man. The Danish ships, supported by the shore batteries, lay in the shallow waters of the Sound. The attacking party had to navigate their ships through narrow and dangerous shoals. On the church towers and roofs hundreds of spectators watched the great fight. There was a dearth of seamen. In some of the vessels there was, so a Danish account narrates, only one sailor in twenty. These raw crews were kept at their drill throughout the night prior to the battle.

Writing to the _Times_ in 1801, an officer present at the engagement says: "The enemy made a very obstinate resistance and fought like brave men. Most of our ships are very much cut up ... and the vessels which have been captured are perfect sieves, there being hardly a single plank in any one of them but has at least ten shot-holes in it. In fact, it was the most dreadfully fought action that ever took place in the annals of history." Of the shattered prizes, only one Danish vessel was fit to be repaired and taken to Portsmouth.

It was at this battle, as every schoolboy knows, that Nelson disregarded Admiral Parker's signal, "I have only one eye," he said, turning to his captain, "and may be allowed to be blind on occasion." Placing the spy-glass to his blind eye he said, "Upon my word, I do not see any signal."

A young Danish officer, a lad of seventeen, Villemoes, commanding a floating battery with twenty-four men, stuck to his post till only four of his men remained. Nelson, after the battle, begged the Crown Prince to introduce the young officer to him. The brave deeds of two great fighting races stand out on that day of awful carnage. Captain Larssen, after the battle, when he appeared in the streets of Copenhagen, was the object of universal homage as the hero of Bloody Maundy Thursday. When he passed Amagertorv, the fishwives would rise and make him a deep curtsy. Yet he passed his days in straitened circumstances and died well-nigh forgotten. No statue commemorates his memory.

But there is a ceramic record of that day of great battle. We illustrate a Copenhagen porcelain bowl, with painted scene, showing the _Dannebrog_ flying and the sea-fight in progress. It was given, painted in colours, to the officers, and uncoloured to the _sous-officiers_ who fought on the 2nd of April 1801. There is one at the _Dansk Folke Museum_ and another at Rosenborg Castle, and the few other bowls in private hands are highly treasured as heirlooms. It is inscribed on a panel:--

_Tilegnet O. Fischer og alle brave Danske. Kiöbenhavn 2 April 1801, af Roepstorff._

(Dedicated to O. Fischer and all the brave Danes. Copenhagen, 2 April 1801, by Roepstorff.)

It is a sad story--the world-wide-empire dreams of one man had brought devastating ruin to friend and foe alike. There are many memories of the Battle of the Baltic; many links of friendship between the island kingdoms by the sea have been forged since then.

Let us think of them that sleep Full many a fathom deep By thy wild and stormy steep, Elsinore!

=Lord Nelson's Letters to Lady Hamilton.=--The letters of Lord Nelson at that date have an interesting reference to Copenhagen porcelain. Apart from finding his portrait on Staffordshire earthenware mugs and jugs as a national hero, and commemorative of his victories, he took a considerable pleasure in ceramic art. In 1802 he ordered a Worcester service, pieces of which are found in the cabinets of collectors. His letters frequently contain references to his china, e.g.: "I send by the coach a little parcel containing the keys of the plate-chest and the case of the tea-urn, and there is a case of Colebrook Dale breakfast set and some other things."

After the Battle of Copenhagen one of his letters to Lady Hamilton is as follows:--

_April 14, 1801._ My dear Friend,

I was in hopes that I should have got off some Copenhagen china to have sent you by Captain Bligh, who was one of my seconds on the 2nd. He is a steady seaman, and a good and brave man....

Another letter to Lady Hamilton, written on the following day, runs:--

_St. George, April 15, 1801._ My dearest Friend,

I can get nothing here worth your acceptance, but as I know you have a valuable collection of china, I send you some of the Copenhagen manufacture. It will bring to your recollection that here your attached friend Nelson fought and conquered. Captain Bligh has promised to take charge of it, and I hope it will reach you safe....

Ever yours, most faithfully, NELSON AND BRONTE.

At this date Müller had not retired from the factory, and Nelson undoubtedly procured some specimens of the best period. It is a matter of conjecture as to whether these examples are now known and in what collection in England they may be found.

Hardly had the echoes of the booming guns died away when Copenhagen was again bombarded by a British fleet in 1807, and the Danish fleet captured to prevent it falling into the hands of Napoleon. A fire had consumed a quarter of the city in 1795, and, succeeded by these later calamities, produced a condition of considerable distress and misery. The porcelain factory had its share of disaster. Falling bombs did irreparable damage: thousands of pounds' worth of porcelain and moulds were destroyed. This last blow was indeed a terrible one for the factory, and helped to complete its ruin.

=The so-called Empire Style.=--But there came another Continental movement inimical to art in no less degree than war--the great inventive spirit which produced the age of machinery. Art grew impoverished and unfertile. Genius seemed to have descended on the workshop and the loom. The painter, the designer, the creator of forms, and the artist in colours lived in a nightmare of banalities. In regard to England, this industrial revolution has been a most powerful factor in stifling art. In Denmark, happily, this problem has not even yet come with overwhelming force, as there are no mines, no copper, iron, or coal, and the shadowy side of scientific invention and deadening commerce has not darkened the artistic horizon.

In considering the ceramics of Denmark, it should be borne in mind that, owing to an isolated northern position, artistic movements affecting the great European centres were slower in obtaining a foothold in Copenhagen. This in a great measure explains the steady growth of national art on its own lines. It was not until 1824, when G. Hetch became director, that the Copenhagen factory commenced to produce designs, then almost disappearing in other parts of Europe, in the Empire style.

Count Caylus in France and Winckelmann in Germany in middle eighteenth-century days had heralded the oncoming classic movement which had its _furore_ of simplicity under the Empire.

Sir William Hamilton and Wedgwood had carried on the traditions in England. The Copenhagen factory at this date followed the decoration of Berlin and Vienna.

_A Cup_ of this period (1830-1840) is illustrated (p. 185). This cup is heavily gilded in the prevalent atrocious style. It is finely painted in natural colours, having a marine scene representing the Castle of Kronborg, with the Sound, and a vessel in full sail. It was here on the ramparts that Hamlet met the ghost of his father. To-day the Danish soldiers in blue uniform keep sentry-go on the platform of the bastion. The bugle-call echoes across the Sound, and the grey frowning walls hold the mystery of the poet's dream.

One recalls Hamlet's vigil here, with his "The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold," and Horatio's reply, "It is a nipping and an eager air," and the angry waves beating below and the gathering storm from the north complete the picture.

We recollect the words--

The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels; The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his pledge.

And remembering, fall in a muse, to be aroused by the note of the bugle and the clash of arms of the guard.

It was here that Charles XII of Sweden came with an army to lay siege, and the place where the manacled prisoners sat in the chapel is yet another link between yesterday and to-day. Here, too, is the tiny room, the prison of the young Queen Caroline Matilda, with barred window, overlooking the stormy sea.

The picture of Kronborg Castle on a cup conjures up a list of tragic memories. It is meet that it should find a record in Copenhagen porcelain. It is a page from Danish history.

Plates of this period show the heavy style that had descended on the factory. Deep gold bands enclose a circular picture, painted in a warm brown colour by Garmein about 1820-1825. They are mainly topographical in character. A plate painted by Jensen is signed with his initial, together with the three blue lines as a factory mark (illustrated, p. 189). It is a fine flower-subject in natural colours, representing primula, blue flowers, and daffodil. The border is richly gilded and has three distinct patterns; it evidently has been used as an experimental piece. It is now in the Museum at the royal factory. There are other plates painted in colours by L. Lyngbe, in 1831 and 1833 respectively, bearing his initial L. They are decorated in rich gilding by Brandstrup. One represents Söroe (with title on medallion), the Eton of Denmark. The other is of Prince's Palace, Christiansborg, Copenhagen.

=The Thorvaldsen Period.=--In 1867 the factory came under the control of A. Falck, and the director Holm, although not capable of raising the artistic output to its old level, introduced a new feature in a number of biscuit figures after Thorvaldsen, the great Danish sculptor.

We reproduce the well-known figure of the god _Mercury_, as indicating the beauty of these productions. Interesting as they are, and undoubtedly possessing great delicacy as replicas of masterpieces of another art, the decadent note is still present in denoting that the modellers had to seek inspiration elsewhere. It is pleasurable to be able to collect a miniature gallery of Thorvaldsen's work in porcelain, but the potting and modelling of them added nothing to the creative faculty of the artists at the factory.

The only productions of importance now conducted were an occasional jubilee or presentation vase made from Hetch's old moulds, decorated with a view of some villa or some edifice associated with the person who ordered the vase. They were usually covered with lilac or purple ground and profusely gilded.

The flame had not gone out, but it was flickering fitfully, and the artistic impulses in painting, and the poetry that had never died in Denmark, were stirring to kindle the fire into renewed life.

Since Höyen, the historian, delivered his lecture in 1844 _On the Conditions for the Development of a National Scandinavian Art_, artists had turned homewards. There was the national spirit of the northern people, the peasants and the fisher-folk, to make the Danish _genre_ picture. There was nothing northern to be found in Rome. Eckersberg had indicated the way, and with the study of man came the study of nature. Johann Thomas Lunbye, with his cattle and his forest landscapes, caught the somnolent air of cattle before Troyon had set the fashion in France. Peter Christian Skovgaad interpreted the spiritual beauty of the Danish beech-woods; his favourite light was the cold pale day of the northern sky with its sober blue. Kroyer, with his _Skagen Fishers at Sunset_, and his _Fishermen setting out by Night_, surrounds the _Dansk Folke_ with mystery and poetry.

To these days belong the rejuvenation of Danish art, and what the painter was doing on his canvas the ceramic artist was shortly to do on his vase and on his placque. The dawn of the Renaissance was at hand.