They also made a marvelous high altar all of porcelain, with
magnificent candlesticks, fonts, and statues--a wonderful embodiment
of their skill as well as their devotion."
"It must have taken some clay!" exclaimed Theo.
"I guess it did," Mr. Croyden assented. "Aside from this work the
output of the Doccia fabrique was largely imitative. They made so many
copies of Sevres, Capo di Monte, and Majolica that it soon became a
great problem to tell the real from the imitation, and this has caused
collectors no end of trouble."
"Was no other porcelain made in Italy?"
"Yes, as far back as 1515 pottery, as I told you, was made in Venice;
and with the discovery of kaolin Venetian merchants imported the true
clay which did not exist in Italy, and manufactured both hard and soft
paste. But the industry was never a success because the expense of
getting the material was so great. In 1753 the Germans, because of the
cheapness of Italian labor, tried making porcelain there, thinking
that they could furnish their own clays at slight cost. But the scheme
was a failure. There was, however, some imitative work done later by a
potter named Cozzi which was very good.
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