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        what shall we say of the taste and judgement of those who spend their
        lives and their fortunes in collecting pieces, where neither perspective,
nor 
        proportion, nor conformity to nature are observed; I mean the extravagant
        lovers and purchasers of CHINA, and INDIAN screens. I saw a sensible
for- 
        eigner astonished at a late auction, with the exorbitant prices given
for 
        these SPLENDID DEFORMITIES, as he called them, while an exquisite
        painting of Guido passed unnoticed, and was set aside as unfashionable
        lumber. Happy should I think myself to be able to convince the fair
conois- 
        seurs . . . that no genuine beauty is to be found in whimsical and
        grotesque figLres, the monstrous offspring of wild imagination, undi-
        rected by nature and truth.", 
   Warton perhaps was a supporter of the classical taste that had spread
via illustrated 
publications and the words and purchases of travelers on the Grand Tour.
Certainly not 
wholly eclipsed during the early 1700s, neoclassicism returned to the forefront
following 
excavations at Pompeii in the 1750s and later ones at Herculaneum and other
classical 
archaeological sites. Probably in response to the beautiful 'White"
marbles being excavated 
at that time, and not realizing that those artifacts originally were painted,
potters created 
refined, whiter bodies and lessened the use of colored decoration. The whiteness
came to 
symbolize the purity and nobility thought to have been common in antiquity.
The black 
basaltes and colored jasperware produced by Josiah Wedgwood and his competitors
in the 
latter part of the century also strongly reflected ancient inspirations,
and the fascination 
with classicism endured well into the nineteenth century. 
   "Modern" Continental designs, based not on neoclassicism nor
on Eastern influences 
but on contemporary European life, first spread to England through imported
goods, 
immigrant artisans, prints, and book illustrations. Potters also studied
Continental and, by 
the mid-1700s, English porcelains and domestic and imported metalwork for
inspiration. 
This new approach allowed for the overlapping or combining of different styles,
sometimes 
in a single object; a cup might be of English metalwork form and bear decoration
inspired 
by Chinese export porcelain; European scenes and inscriptions might be painted
within 
chinoiserie borders. The ability to surprise us by its apparent design incongruities
is one of 
English pottery's most attractive qualities. 
48. As cited in Appleton, Cathay, p. 107. 
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