Vase (from a garniture of three) ca. 1725-30 Meissen Manufactory German These three vases (64.101.153a, b-.155a, b) are distinctive for their muted blue color, which was achieved by tinting the porcelain paste rather than by applying a blue ground color after the vases had been glazed. The vases were made during the period in which the Meissen factory was experimenting with ground colors, and adding color to the paste before the objects were thrown or molded must have been one of the methods explored. Very few pieces with tinted color were produced at Meissen (see 1977.216.12, .13), suggesting that the results were deemed unsatisfactory. It has been observed by Ulrich Pietsch that enamel colors do not read well against the tinted ground,1 and it may have been for this reason that adding color to the paste was abandoned after a period of several years in favor of colored grounds applied over the glaze. The standard format that developed for the use of colored grounds left certain defi