WAGs PONE a (ant na ieee a Dd ihe iy Me aloe Win ' PRE vi NOMA NTE, iy \ r r ‘ NMC ui SM a So Nas iia) Hy ¥ ih SA vA Yea «5% Ty ph? of j ‘ ny * Lee A he ya is i Vite 4, ie ae ee ane a See of a RE ee ST vase M/s ETT VE Ms: 4 Ly BERNARD PALISSY. Frontispiece. ba ime in the Hétel de Cluny.) (From a Painting of the t CHEEFS-D’diU VRE OF THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS. BY PHIGITPPE BURTY. POTTERY AND PORCELAIN, GLASS, ENAMEL, METAL, GOLDSMITHS’ WORK, JEWELLERY, AND TAPESTRY. Sees Ces ee A) EDITED BY W. CHAFFERS, F.S.A. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND CO, GRAND STREET. 1869. ad * é CLOWES AND SONS. . TELTAM ior w ‘ PRINTER . . PREFACE. In editing this interesting and comprehensive work on the Industrial and Ornamental Arts, as well as in revising the translation and comparing it with the original text, I have endeavoured to confine myself as much as possible to a correct interpretation of the terms employed in the several Arts, and to describe the modus operandi of each manufacture in such a manner as to be intelligible to the English reader. I have also purposely avoided any interference with the ideas or sentiments of the author, or his opinions on the various subjects he passes under review; but when any matter has called for especial notice, a foot note has been added. W. CHAFFERS. 19 Fitzroy Square, London. February 20, 1869. 7 . ” * oy ll * * ’ 4 . ¥ ‘ X . ° . ee , a . had , ; 4 ‘ \% ‘ * Ss es “ : wa > " 4 : . * ay P 4 # / Ay , - ; ; ~ : % i * a c ah § ; : o. a We, " w CONTENTS. —_—— eo PAGE CERAMIC ART ., 2 : P : : i : é : eer TERRA COTTA . : f , ; . . ; . ‘ Paes ENAMELLED FAIENCE . : : : : : : : at PORCELAIN Pets : , ; , : ; ; : wait GLASS: TABLE GLASS . 4 : : ; : J : j ; APA ar! WINDOW GLASS ; ; ; ; : : : : : 2 201 ENAMELS . ? ; 4 : ‘ ; ; : : : Pat yi | METALS: BRONZE AND [RON ‘ : ! : ‘ ; : : 2 JEWELLERY AND PLATE ; : f : ; ; : . 301 TAPESTRY AND CARPETS . ; . 367 yey < ~ x LIST OF THE FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE BERNARD PALISsy . . (Frontispiece) A GIRL AT HER TOILET . ; : : : : : ee lee THE TorLet oF VENUS . : 3 aries OT PAvinea TILES OF THE SAINTE 3 Bee : ; : : : . od BIBERON OF OIRON FAYENCE . : ‘ eres : : Sar ee OvaL Pauissy DisH, wWItH REPTILES : : ; : ar BENITIER OF NEVERS FAYENCE ; : ; ; - LO2 MotstiERS WARE SuGaR CasTER : : eG RENNES FAYENCE FOUNTAIN AND BASIN . : : : iit os bi PrerstAN WARE EWER MOUNTED IN METAL y ; . : Pia tak ° PERSIAN WARE VESSELS . é : : ; j met ~GoURD FOR THE DECORATION OF A SIDEBOARD—OF Waerk STONE ANA, eee ede : : : : ; ’ any ie Vase, Ewrr, AND res ; ; : ; : ; ; . 144 Tae SKATING PARTY : ; meta he VAsE OF OLD DreEspEN PORCELAIN . : ‘ . 154 A VESTAL , : : : : ; : : . fon Loe THE Moprern PsycHE ; . f ; : ; ; Ce Ls GERMAN GLASS DRINKING VESSELS. ‘ F ve 188 WINbLOW IN THE CATHEDRAL OF St. DENIS : . 204 LAZARUS AT THE RicH MAn’s GATE ‘ ; eos ANCIENT CHINESE CLOISONNI: ENAMEL VASE ; : ; ad. RoMANO-GAULISH VASE, IN BRONZE, ENAMELLED ; pad Limoges ENAMEL Ewmr. SIxTEENTH CENTURY . ; 228 Henry II. anp Drana or PoIcTrEeRs ; ; ; . . 280 Henry II. ; ; : : , : ; : ; 2 doe Laspour TRIUMPHANT ; ; : : : eat ITALIAN SworD OF THE SIXTEENTH Cis ‘ : . 260 CmsArn HARANGUING HIS Troops ; E ; , ; . 266 EGYPTIAN BRONZE SEATED FIGURE OF OsTIRIS EayprTriAN BroxzkE oF THE BuLut APIS ; ; ; ; ; Vili ILLUSTRATIONS. Ewer, CANDLESTICK, PERFUME-BURNER, AND TORTOISE, OF JAPANESE BRONZE ? 3 : 2 COMMODE MADE BY PHILIPPE CAFFIERI WROUGHT-IRON Door KNOCKER . Iron Gates or THE NEw Parc Moncravx CANDELABRUM OF CAST-IRON GREEK PENDANT IN Form or A MASK GREEK GOLD EARRING GREEK GOLD FIBULA ‘ GREEK GOLD CIRCULAR FIBULA RELIQUARY Cross OF GILT COPPER RELIQUARY FROM THE ANCIENT TREASURY OF BASLE RELIQUARY OF COPPER GILT VIRGIN AND CHILD DAMASCENED CASKET SALT-CELLAR OF GOLD ENAMELLED, REPRESENTING EAKTH AND OCEAN THE NymMpPH oF FONTAINEBLEAU Prrsgvus, BY B. CELLINI . : VasE AND Cup oF ORIENTAL JASPER, MOUNTED IN GOLD EWER OF ENAMELLED GOLD CuurcH LAMP IN SILVER : : : ‘ x Breer Pot OF EMBOSSED SILVER A Fancon CHASE J : THe History oF DAvID AND BATHSHEBA : PERSIAN CARPET OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, IN SILK THE HARE AND THE PARTRIDGE PATTERNS FOR HAND NEEDLEWORK . ° ° PAGE 270 276 287 a _—— | | A M I C AR T _ ae 7 4 ” CERAMIC ART. Or all those kinds of industry which decorative art has ennobled, the fictile or ceramic is that which man has most closely associated with his own existence. The indications with which it furnishes the historian and the critic are, therefore, the most comprehensive, and at the same time the most particular. The Polish numismatist, Lelewel, wrote, when in exile, to a friend who had submitted to him a plan of historic studies in connection with earthen vases: “ The light thrown by art upon pottery of the commonest kind may be as serviceable as language itself in promoting our knowledge of the origin of races, their military expeditions and commercial relations.” This statement is perfectly accurate. It is the more interesting from the fact that materials abound for the study thus recommended, and that the earth is a museum of which the cases have scarcely been opened as yet,— much less inspected. What surprises await us! We have had under our eyes, we have held in our hand, we have examined with that curiosity which attaches to whatever has existed in the early days of humanity, a fragment of pottery, only very little posterior in date to the last deluge. It is a little pot of greyish earth, covered with a black coating ; the vertical sides of it must have been shaped by the hand, and not by the wheel, for they bear striated traces of the pressure of a human finger. This pot has been baked by fire, and not simply by the heat of the sun, for it was found (not indeed alone) in a peat bog in the department of the Aisne, at Saint-Simon ; and had it not been B 2 4 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, subjected, no matter how rapidly, to the passage of fire which renders clay indissoluble, it must have been dissolved by the moisture of the soil, like a soft paste. It was found amidst the remains of animals, one of which, the Castor fiber, is extinct; the other bones belonged to the stag, the otter, the pig, the roebuck, the pike, and the curlew. From the co-existence of these bones with the pottery found amongst them, we may assume the establishment of a stationary population of hunters and fishers. The jawbone of an antediluvian man has already been discovered ; possibly antediluvian vases may yet be discovered. ‘The invention of Ceramic manufacture‘is so evidently coeval with the dawn of civiliza- tion, that the annals of mankind have passed it unnoticed. Cain built a city, and called it after his eldest son Enoch. Now, as the remains of those cities that are strewn over the soil of Syria and Me- sopotamia are, for the most part, vast masses of bricks dried in the sun, it is more than probable that Enoch was built of-similar materials. Here, then, strictly speaking, from the Biblical point of view, we are presented with specimens of antediluvian Ceramic industry. ‘The necessity of keeping water pure and fresh must have been more sensibly felt than any other by pastoral tribes. The man who lived by the banks of rivers had only to kneel at the brink, and scoop up the water with his hand. The huntsman found about the forests - springs and brooks, and flowers filled with morning dew, and trees from which aromatic juices might be extracted by wounding the bark. But to the nomad population earthen vases were absolutely necessary, either for drawing water from the well, or storing it in the tent, or for preserving from the sun’s devouring heat the provisions of the — caravan. The impress of a footprint in the soil, hardened by the sun, filled with water by the storm, and then converted to a cup in which small birds would dip their beaks,—might not this have suggested the idea of a vase, and given birth to the first potter ? The general history of Ceramic art is entirely new; but the minds of its students have been so well prepared for the reception and treat- ‘ment of its materials, that in less than ten years it has made the most rapid progress; and at peesat it is by the abundance of documents that we are embarrassed. In France, especially, the movement is most + Toca The re- CERAMIC ART. 5 action towards the end of the eighteenth century, pushed to its extreme by the classic school of David, had brought into fashion the so-called Etruscan vases; they were confiscated by the savants. The classic terra-cotta made us forget the native pottery. ‘The description of a sacred scene, the rendering of an inscription, the assignment of a name, excluded all other claims on attention. People collected antique vases, not for the pleasure of the eyes, or the decoration of the chamber, but for the satisfaction of erudition. Under the first empire, too, white porcelain had all the housewives and housekeepers for its champions. In these later years artists who had ended their apprenticeship, and who visited for their pleasure Normandy or the forest of Fontainebleau, used to buy from their peasant hosts in the villages and country towns, Rouen dishes of radiant decoration, and Nevers plates with grotesque or buffo designs. This vulgar taste, first laughed at, was eventually adopted so widely that a sixpenny assiette a cog is now worth sixty francs! In the meanwhile, amateurs and traders of taste had brought from Italy dishes to which the potters of Majorca and Urbino had given the grand style of Oriental art, or of the fine periods of Italian art. People began to admire the changing hues of the metallic lustres, the free and bold attitude of the figures, and became at last so enthusiastic as to pillage even the apothecaries’ shops. Closer relations with China, Japan, and Persia brought into the market new food for the ever-increasing curiosity of the public. The success of those printed vessels with expressive outline, those vases with long-clawed dragons twisting round their sides, those deep dishes with pinks and carnations blowing in the hollow of them, began to disturb the souls of the disciples of the old classic school, and it is from this return of taste to the Oriental porcelain that we may date all serious discussion concerning the principles of decorative art. At last, the eighteenth century haying reconquered the ground it had lost, Dresden figures and Sévres services were appreciated for their refined gallantry and elegance. Thus arose the wish to learn the history of all that which had come to grace with so much harmony and colour the shelves of studios and the cabinets of salons. On all sides archives began to be searched, travellers questioned, and potters encouraged to study Ceramic art ; and now, indeed, we are beginning to be altogether overwhelmed by the deluge of monographs inspired by the legitimate claims of ancient 6 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. provisional centres, classification according to country, epoch, or the special character of collections, public and private, and the number of imitations attempted in every direction and often carried to perfection. | | But let not the reader suppose that we are about to leave him in the labyrinth without a clue. We have read, classified, and consulted on his behalf all that has been written, classified, or exposed of late years as regards Ceramic art; and it will be our endeavour, not indeed to complete his education in respect thereof, but to bring under his notice certain points which can be easily studied, and which will furnish him with a key to all the rest. For, though it is well that the museums should collect specimens of all kinds of pottery, in the twofold interest of art and manufacture, and an excellent thing that amateurs should vie with each other for the perfect products of Persia or Italy, Rouen or Nevers, Moustiers or Delft, yet this faience-mania must not be allowed to obliterate every subject of examination but that of fracture and trade marks. We shall devote three chapters to the mention of the most important and best-known works of Ceramic art. One will be devoted to terra cotta, and will specially treat of the use that has been made of it by sculptors ; the second will treat of enamelled faience, and will narrate the personal history of the greatest artizan that France has to boast of—Bernard Palissy ; finally, we shall rapidly review the chefs dceuvre of Oriental and European pottery. The favour of the public for Oriental Ceramics, and those of the Renaissance and Eighteenth Century is not a mere infatuation. It is a very legitimate enthusiasm for a brilliant and sound material, the employment of which for external decoration must justly increase its importance, and of which the daily use imposes on societies as polished as ours, obligations of research as regards ornamentation and form, which are, in some sort, of general utility. We may judge of the taste of a people for the arts exclusively from the dishes and vases which it employs for daily use. We shall therefore not omit to notice the attempts, so worthy of interest, which are now being made in France and England to restore to decorative Ceramic art its ancient splendour. A brief mention of centres so important in past times as Rouen, Nevers, Marseilles, Moustiers, Strasbourg, will suffice to show how thoroughly national is this branch of industry. TERRA COTTA. hotel of Sane Sardini—The saat? The tanks pane Be Be of the Oe Cyrenaica—F lorentine cantatrice—The med Rat } > “i Pek’ a0 : ~ ae a Ad ae aie ‘ 4 ‘ ; 5 « o®\ . q ‘ # a v i * ‘ * Pd TERRA COTTA. WaeErEveR men have discovered plastic clay, that is to say a rich unctuous earth, easily diluted or tempered, and which, when once dried, either by evaporation in the shade, or the rays of the sun, or the heat of an oven, is durably firm to the touch, they have invariably made use of it to model vases, or idols, or materials for roofing or building. Invariably also they have traced upon it more or less the same deco- rative forms—semicircles, straight lines, or zig-zags. The Greeks, who mingled fable and history with a singular charm, thus account for the invention of Ceramic art applied to the representa- tion of the human figure—that is to say of bas-relief, and bust, and statue—“ It is said that Debutades, a potter at Sicyon, was the first who attempted to shape images out of the earth he made his pots of ; and this by means of a daughter of his, who, being in love with a young man, drew with a coal, by candle-shade, on the wall, the profile of her lover’s face in order that she might always be able to contem- plate his features when he was absent. Seeing this, the father filled up the outline of the said features by plastering the wall with clay in conformity with the profile traced upon it; and having perceived that by this means he had produced a certain form, he put it to bake with his pots.” It is not, however, to the Greeks that we must attribute the first attempts at modelling and moulding; for the statuettes of divinities in earth dried or baked, painted or enamelled, which are found all over the globe, amongst the most savage tribes as well as in the oldest Egyptian sarcophagi, establish the general existence Io MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. of an art which no people can claim the invention of. An artist in earthen works, far older than Debutades, is mentioned in the Mahab- harata, a Sanscrit poem, so richly descriptive, so florid, so solemn, that the perusal of it seems to carry us away into the forests it describes, filled with lofty trees, covered with flowers, traversed by the flight of peacocks, inhabited by anchorites, and bathed by torrent streams. Savitri—this is the name of the herome from whom this chaste and touching episode derives its title—Savitri falls in love with the son of a deposed king. “He still possesses excellent horses, and he loves them so well that he fashions them out of clay; he also paints horses = fll ANCIENT GALLIC POTTERY. (Found in the Vendée.) of many colours.” This artist, who doubtless lived long before the heroes of the Iliad, was called Satiavan. But under this fable of Debutades, the Greeks implied a critical statement which is strikingly true, viz., that the real inventor of an art is he who first practises it artistically. ‘The story of Debutades, therefore, is true. He used, as artist, what those before him had used only as children or barbarians. His alto-relievo, for this is probably what is implied by the text, so greatly impressed his contemporaries that it was placed with the bronze statues of Corinth, and there re- mained till that city was destroyed by the Consul Mummius. Another Greek potter—this one was a practician—invented the art — of moulding ; that is to say of obtaining any number of copies from an original by means of soft earth inserted into a properly-hollowed receptacle. It is to this art, which comes strictly within our pro- gramme of art applied to industry, that we owe our knowledge of all — TERRA COTTA. II the charm and force, the fulness and refinement, which antiquity lavished upon its statues and the exterior decoration of its monuments. _ The museum of Napoleon III., in the Louvre, will furnish our readers with a vast field for exploration quite as well as a journey through Greece or Italy. The most important object is a tomb, said to be Lydian, which was found intact in Etruria; two personages, a husband and wife, are extended upon it in a recumbent position, leaning on their elbows; their crooked, turned-up chins, prominent cheek-bones, Chinese eyes, head-gear, and pointed slippers, denote an Oriental origin which the learned have not yet been able to define precisely. On other sarcophagi of a much later date we also find couples or isolated figures reposing, not like our seigneurs of the middle age, reposing in sleep with clasped hands and stretched out legs, but leaning on the elbow, as though _ death were an invitation to a funeral repast or philosophic conversation. The greater part of these are of trivial workmanship; the neck is detached, showing that the potters had ready-made bodies on hand, and that the relatives of the deceased must have hastened to the work- shop, in the last moment, to order a head resembling more or less that of the departed. Much more interesting than these funereal figures are the antifixes and bas-reliefs which were displayed in friezes along the facades of the Roman houses. It will be observed that the same subject was fre- quently repeated. ‘The Curetes, clashing their bucklers to drown the _ cries of the infant Bacchus; naked and muscular vintagers treading, in time to some song, the grapes in the wine-press ; two young satyrs standing on tiptoe to reach the vase of a fountain too high for their lips ; or the combat of Apollo and Hercules disputing for the prophetic tripos of Delphi; Hercules discovering the infant Telephus, suckled by a goat in a grotto overshadowed by a tree; or, further on, bearing a bull on his shoulder and followed by Autumnus, or taming the bull of Marathon; the marriage of Thetis and Peleus, a scene of touching chastity and grandeur; or again, Theseus discovering his father’s armour under a stone. Sometimes the treatment of the subject rises into the highest emo- tional expression, and the face and figure of Helen, driving with her own hand the car in which she returns with Menelaus to her palace, expresses a profound discouragement. A Penthesilea, who falls dying 12 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. into the arms of an Achilles filled with compassion, is also one of the most affecting of these subjects. We have already called attention to the frequent repetition of the same subject. It is in such repetition that the genius of the artists who modelled these bas-reliefs for so modest an employment is most strikingly evinced. In every case the scene is slightly modified, the muscular detail changed, the gesture eeucounT, ie L. CHAPON. BACCHANAL FRIEZE. (Terra Cotta, Campana Collection.) sharpened or softened, the expression aimed at, more tender, or more haughty. They are so many editions of the same text, revised and corrected by ingenious editors. | We shall not dwell upon those bas-reliefs which represent foliage or fanciful designs. -In designs of this kind, as also in automatic — knowledge, and the arrangement of drapery, the Greeks are superior. The Renaissance has in vain endeavoured to surprise the secret of that sovereign grace, that sweetness, combined with gravity of expression, — and has too often degenerated into mannerism. TERRA COTTA. 13 For frankness and originality, the ornamentation of our Gothic cathedrals is all which the decorative art of the Western world can venture to place beside those bas-reliefs, which were coloured, or of — which at least the figures were relieved by a blue or red ground. Cicero calls them types “typi” when he writes to his friend Atticus to send him some from Athens for the adornment of his atrium. The ORNAMENT OF A ROMAN HOUSE. (Terra Cotta relief. Campana Collection.) finest specimens have been found at Ardea, ancient capital of the Rutuli, which was situated not far from Rome and Tusculum. A mould has also been found there. But what surpasses even these bas-reliefs, in freshness, homeliness, and charming simplicity, is the little antique statuettes, and especially those called Cyrenaic. The greater part of them still bear traces of colour. Doubt has long been felt as to the purpose to which these statuettes were applied; for they are found in great numbers, though, unfortunately, not the finest of them. It is now thought, that in all cases where they were not native offerings, such as those little waxen figures which modern piety still places in chapels of the Virgin, they 14 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. were simply used as objects of art, for household ornaments, to charm the wandering eye. The young woman at her toilette, which belonged to the Pourtales éollection, is quite as precious as an antique in bronze or marble. Mr. Mercuri has spent a day in endeavouring, with his finest graver, to render the dove-like softness, the simplicity in pose and gesture, of this young lady bent over the mirror. Of the same kind is the head of a young Greek—some shepherd of Theocritus. That fine, panting mouth, is it not made to blow through the reeds of the pastoral pipe ; and that little straw hat, scarcely covering the brow, does it not seem there only to be thrown off when the wearer flings himself at length on the fresh herbage in the beech trees’ shade ? One movement has taken hold of the artists who modelled these figures. It is that of the dancing girl, who springs forward, the bust slightly bent back, the leg advanced, and rustling the folds of her robe; or that of the woman leaving the bath, who wraps around her with a chilly gesture a long linen covering. These little statuettes were placed in tombs with the dead. We find some. very homely ones in the tombs of children— dolls with articulated arms ; polichinellos with parrot noses ; dogs, cats, cocks, fish, &e. It is death telling the story of life: these objects, that have lain in the little hands of children and young girls, are the same as those which, to this day, amuse our own childhood. The sketches and remains of temples, on the other hand, speak to us only of a political and social life, the features of which are unfamiliar to us. In the thermal resorts of the rich Roman invalids, and notably near Vichy, completely organized factories for the moulding of these statuettes have been discovered. But these are almost shapeless, and when we find a mould which still gives good impressions, we may be pretty sure that it has been taken from some Greek or Roman object, brought there in his baggage by some wealthy amateur. Pliny speaks of entire statues in terra cotta; none such have come down to us. GREEK SHEPHERD, (Cabinet of M. Thiers.) f ih Na if \ | IR Hoy I An A GIRL AT HER TOILETIE, (Greek terra cotta. Pourtales Collection, ) ‘ Page 14. TERRA COTTA, 15 But our collections possess casts of medallions, doubtless employed for female ornament, the impression of which is very successful, and _ often gilt, to imitate more completely the originals. The Italian Renaissance, in its turn, was enthusiastic about busts and statuettes in terra cotta. If we here mention the name of the Della FLORENTINE SINGER. Robbias, it is only to say that we shall hereafter have special occasion to notice more particularly those artists who, by applying the enamel of faience to terra cotta, invested it with a peculiarly decorative character. 16 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, In the present place let it suffice to record the fact, that after a long period of undeserved indifference, the terra cotta busts of the Italian Fifteenth Century are now sought after with eagerness. At the Exposition rétrospective, organized in 1865, at the Palace of the Champs-Elysées, by the central Union des Beaux Arts appliqués a ? Industrie, there was an admirable statuette of a young Florentine woman, which attracted every amateur. She is standing upright, in a robe of brocaded satin, which still bears traces of gilding ; she is singing aloud the music she holds written in her hands. It is the work of an artist of genius, whose name is unknown, and is probably the portrait of some princess of that court of the Dukes of Urbino, so distinguished for polished gallantry, literature and art.* But the sixteenth century did not merely abandon to sculptors the use of terra-cotta, which it also employed for the modelling of entire altar-screens. We shall return, apropes of the Della Robbias, to the subject,—the figures in alto-relievo which those artists inserted in medallions. One sees in the facade of some of the numerous interior courts of Hampton Court, large medallions of terra-cotta, from each of which the head of a Roman emperor looks out bold and vigorous from a heavy laurel wreath. It is said that they were sent by Leo X. to Cardinal Wolsey. In the hétel of Scipio Sardini, which is used at present for the general management of the Paris hospitals, there exists — an entire gallery, which has been spared by the indifference or caprice of modern architects; and under the arcades the heads of princesses and heroes may also be seen. Nothing can better harmonise with brickwork than those tints and tones of reddened earth, nor anything be more ludicrous than that kind of ornamentation which consists of moulded reliefs that invite the play of light and shade. Our modern * We have in this translation omitted the description of a bust in terra cotta of Jerome Benivieni, recently purchased as the work of a Florentine artist of the fifteenth century by the director of the Louvre, but which is now known to have been executed by M. Bastianini of Fiesole, in 1864, for M. Freppa of Florence, who paid him the sum of 350 francs; it was sold to a dealer in Paris for 700 franes, and afterwards, in a public sale by auction, adjudged to the Comte de Nieuwerkerke for the sum of 13,600 francs, and is now in the Imperial Collection. The deception was noticed in the “Chronique des Arts,” of the 15th December, 1867, and in the present year M. Foresi has published a pamphlet entitled “ Tour de Babel, ou Objets d’Art faux pris pour vrai,” with the declarations of the sculptor Bastianini, and all the parties concerned. In this book many other pseudo antiques are traced to the same studio.—Ep, AA tS ed “)L o8tg (asnaljag 1a1eQ “J 0} SuyBuoleg “UOIPOID Aq ‘yarjar-svq #7900 11,1) ~S % b SS yp 4 ————- SS PS ASN Zee TERRA COTTA. 17 architects only venture to employ it upon structures of a common kind—in stable-yards, and the outer courts of country houses, for example. They are wrong not to be more courageous. The eighteenth century degraded the art of sculpture in terra cotta by a ridiculous employment of it. It animated its parks and gardens with groups of figures dressed or painted aw naturel. Things of this kind were in existence only a few years ago. Leside some piece of water you used to perceive a washerwoman, with her washing-beetle always in her hand, and never beating anything. A gardener is musing, with his elbow resting on the handle of his spade. An abbé galant pretends to be reading in his breviary, and is eternally ogling a shepherdess, whose sheep have only one ear and three legs. This notion of transforming a fine woodland or grassy park into a cabinet of earthenware figures, is one of the most shocking improprieties of that epoch. As we are unwilling to remain under so unpleasant an impression of an age that we greatly esteem, we have here reproduced one of those groups, modelled by Clodion with indefatigable vigour. Those little puffy Loves, those distempered bacchanals, those satyrs, walking with muscular backs bent under the menace of a cloven-footed infant, intoxicated by a couple of crushed grapes, these are the last chefs dewvre of terra cotta. They have often been compared, for their caprice of treatment and vivacity of effect, to the etchings of painters. Might not this toilette of Venus be just as well signed Fragonard sculpsit ? Our modern society, fastidious and with but little indulgence for the art that smeles, will it ever see those pleasant days restored? Let us hope so; and, indeed, applause has been accorded to an artist who has lately exposed some models of an easy and pleasing composition, and some busts of great vivacity. arth can be forced into a mould, and the sculptor then can and should, while it is yet moist and malleable, retouch and give it a new surface. Such proofs have, for this reason, more individuality and rarity than the proofs of a bronze, which is only retouched by a professional carver. Terra cotta has less rigidity than bronze, less uniformity than marble. Its tone is warmer, and its surface, imperceptibly grained, has none of those reflex lights, the great effect of which is dependent upon large surfaces. It 1s eminently a material for objects of familiar character. Pajou and Houdon have 0 18 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. shown us what sort of style can be attained in terra cotta, Let our artists use bronze for heroic, marble for ideal statues, but take the clay and the modelling-tool more often in hand to reproduce the features of their contemporaries, or embody some pleasing fantasy. EHNAMELLED FAIENCE. eae Glagure, enamel, glaze—Greek vases—A supper @ U’antique at Madame Lebrun’s— Ornamentation and employment of Greek vases—Roman pottery at Rome and in Gaul—Medieval and modern enamelled pavements—Faiences d’Oiron, called “Service de Henri II.”—M. Benjamin Fillon discovers the secret of their origin in the neighbourhood of Fontenay-le-Comte—Gouffier family—Heéléne de Hangest, Francois Charpentier, her potter, and Jean Bernart, her librarian. Majolica comes from the island of Majorca—The Alhambra vase —Valence manufac- ture—The secret of lustres and irisations, Luca della Robbia—His first works at Florence, as-architect, sculptor, painter and decorator—Andrea and Girolamo della Robbia—Modern attempts. _ Origin of Italian majolica—Its success in Italy and France—Faenza manufactures— The book of Piccolpasso, the potter—Book of Giambattista Passeri, the antiquary— Manufactures of Pesaro, Castel Durante and Deruta—Metallic lustres of Fr. Xanto, and Maestro Giorgio—Existing manufacture of the Marquis Ginori— False amateurs. . Bernard Palissy—His birth—His first book, “ Récepté véritable ”—His stay in Paris— Second book, “ Discours admirables’’—Story of his studies and vexations told by himself in the “ Art de Terre”—His portrait—His grottos and other works—His tragic death—His imitators. Nevers Faience, from Louis, Duke of Gonzaga, to the present day—Practical notions about the art of faience—Rouen Faience, its triumph and decay—Faiences of Moustiers, Marseilles, Rennes, &c. Modern attempts—Minton and Lessore—Enamelled lava—Faiences of Persia, India and Rhodes—A,. de Beaumont—The brothers Deck, &c,—Printing on faience, Gres de Flandre and terre de pipe—Ziegler. ENAMELLED FAIENCE. Aumost immediately after the invention of Ceramic manufacture,— properly so called,—that is to say, of terra cotta, the application thereto of glaze or colouring enamels must have improved and given to it a peculiar physiognomy. What we term glagure, is a light varnish, which enlivens and har- monises the porous surface of terra cotta. In its simple state it is a mixture of silex and lead, and in this state it is transparent, as we find it on antique vases: when vitrifiable, and mixed with tin, as in the case of majolicas, it is called enamel; and when of vitrifiable and earthen substance, such as can only be melted at the temperature required for the baking of the paste itself, it is known as glaze, or couverte, and can be identified in the Persian faiences and Flemish stoneware. The bricks brought from the banks of the Euphrates are enamelled. The Egyptians employed glaze, and the little figures they have left us of gods or animals in turquoise blue, or sea-green, are cleverly coloured pastes of the greatest antiquity. The colours are obtained by the mixture of metallic oxides with the flux or emollient used after the baking, to make them adhere com- pletely to the surface of the clay. The palette of a Chinese ceramist which we may take as our model, for it contains all that the decorator can possibly desire in the way of brilliancy and diversity of tone, is thus composed: oxide of copper, for greens and greenish blues; gold, for reds; oxide of cobalt, for blues; oxide of antimony, for reds ; 22 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. arsenic and stannic acid, for whites. The intermediate tones which may boast of having fascinated European chemists, have had the effect of suggesting to Sevres the textual copy of pictures, an exercise of inge- nuity which cannot possibly be the legitimate aim of this kind of art. The artists of antiquity, who were in constant relation with Asia Minor, cannot possibly have been ignorant of the secret of the appli- cation of enamels or colours to clay. With the exception, however, of some fragments of vases, one of which represents a comic mask, enamelled in yellow, black and red, Ancient Greece and Italy have bequeathed to us nothing which can properly be called painted faience.* The Greeks possessed a surpassing sentiment of harmony. Thanks to a concourse of peculiar circumstances—to their Asiatic origin, their luminous climate, the beautiful outlines of their land- scape, their philosophy, their social constitution, their intellectual superiority to the surrounding populations, and even the youthful virility to which humanity attained in their time, theirs was the unrivalled privilege to enjoy for a century and a half that serenity of soul to which the creation of great works is a natural instinct. Their pottery, no less than their sculpture, reveals their exquisite taste and the perfect equilibrium of their life. Simple and noble forms must have sprung up under the hand of the potter, like flowers from a vigorous stem. Destined for the adornment of temples, or the repasts of a cultivated and refined society, for the prizes of games and contests, or the decoration of tombs, these vases were decorated naturally with mystic or bacchanalian scenes, sacred fables, and figures of charioteers and gladiators. The Greek colony which established itself in Etruria, brought with it, scarcely modified at all, the stencilled outlines which had previously been traced at Athens, or elsewhere in Greece. It has even been ascertained that the Htruscan potters had ceased to understand the mystic sense of the allegories or historical facts, the representation of which they continued to repeat for centuries, to meet the cpameng of their Italian purchasers. | * It is, doubtless, in allusion to some fresco that this curious passage of Pliny refers: ““When Murena and Varro were ediles, they caused to be brought from Lacedzemon the whole of a brick wall for the adornment of the market-place on the election day. So rich was the painting on this wall, and the more admirable and excellent the painting on it, the more wonderful was it how the wall could have been removed and transported entire to Rome.” | HENAMELLED FAIENCE. 23 _ Works of immense erudition have been published in Germany, Italy, England, and France, on ancient fictile art, or rather on Greek and Roman vases. What has chiefly occupied the writers of these works is the age of the vases, their nationality, the meaning of the sacred, profane, tragic, comic, or household scenes that adorn them, and the names of the gods, heroes, and other personages inscribed over the figures represented thereon. They have done their utmost to explain the use and character of the objects which these vases - represent, such as beds, chairs, stools, tables, stuffs, jewel-caskets, arms, implements, sacrificial instruments, and altars. They have helped us es : oS 2 a //7/7// VASE WITH BLACK GROUND. (Etruscan manufacture.) to resuscitate the manners and customs of antiquity, and have even succeeded, by the classification of the purest forms, the noblest orna- ments, the best-composed scenes, in establishing the chronology of the rise aad fall of ancient Greek or Italian art. Unfortunately, all these resulis are presented in a phraseology bristling with Greek and Latin, end in bulky folios of most unattractive appearance. It is much to be wished that benevolent savans, like the Baron de Wytte for example, should do over again, for minds of ordinary capa- city, what has thus been done only for the learned. It is impossible 24 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. to contemplate without a sort of superstitious reverence all this in- dustry, ennobled as it is by the hands of so many great artists, and the actual use which has been made of it by the whole society of antiquity. How often, in inspecting the treasures of some museum of ancient art, is one not tempted to ask one’s self, if this be not perhaps the very cup in which Alexander sipped to try his physician, or that vase of red earth be not one in which Plato may have bu his hands when he sat down to the banquet ? The study of antique vases dates especially from the last years of the seventeenth century. A hundred years later it was all the rage. Madame Lebrun gives us in her “ Mémoires,” which would have ensured her the reputation of a clever woman, even if her brush had not made her famous, an account of an archeological feast, the idea of which was suggested to her by a perusal of the “ Voyages en Greéce du Jeune Anacharsis,” by the Abbé Barthélemy. “ When I ceme to the place where, in describing a Greek dinner, he explains ths way of making several sauces, I immediately sent for my cook, and set her to work at once. As I was expecting some very pretty women among my guests, I took it into my head that we would all adopt Grecian costumes. My studio, full of draperies of all sorts for the adomment of my models, supplied a sufficiency of garments, and the Co: nt de Parois, who was then lodging in my house in the Rue de Clér , had a beautiful collection of Etruscan vases. I told him of mys bis. and he brought me a number of antique cups, bowls and vy made my seiection, and placed them on an uncovered malogany table, eacce ” The guests arrived; Madame Chalgrin, the daaghter of Joseph Vernet, Lebrun-Pindare, to whom was allotted a laurels. Monsieur de Parois dressed himself up as Anacreon.,. . “My daughter,” she adds, “ who was charming (as is proved dy her portrait at the Louvre), and Mademoiselle Bonneuil (who afterwards, under the Empire, became the beautiful Madame Regnault de Saint Jean d’Angely) were exquisite to look at, each holding up very light antique vase, and preparing to offer it to us to drink ‘rom.” It is only the eighteenth century which had wit and humour e ngh to laugh with such grace at the mania for the antique. Under the Empire it was proposed and even attempted to Sntnetic again, for common use, all the old shapes for utensils and cups, as we ag their austere style of decoration. | ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 25 But the fact that they were no longer in accordance with the manners, customs, and fashions of that period was quite forgotten. In a sunny climate, full of warmth of colouring, among interiors of houses painted with sharp and decided tints, amidst people who wore purple cloaks or light-coloured tunics, this style of decoration, with a red or a black ground, formed a repose for the eye. But, coming from the hands of our porcelain manufacturers, it appeared dull and hard ; in the hands of decorative painters, who could neither under- stand nor perceive the elegance of figures expressed only by a neat and distinct outline, the heads became distorted, and the attitudes as stiff and angular as those of a lay figure. Besides this, the style and shade of colouring became exaggerated, and notwithstanding the habit of taking exact copies of statues and bas-reliefs, the examples of coloured earthenware left to us by Athens and South Italy were quite forgotten. These are covered with gilt ornaments, sometimes in relief, which breaks the monotony of a mere silhouette. We hear of certain bowls at the bottom of which, while the earth was still in a soft and im- pressible condition, the potter cleverly applied a mould of the Syra- cusan medallion, which is the purest example of antique numismatic art. The most celebrated of these vases ornamented in relief is that of Cume, a hydria or ewer, which at one time would have become the property of France, had not Russia selected it in the Campana Col- lection before France had made known her mind on the subject, and it is now one of the ornaments in the Hermitage Museum at St. Petersburg. The lower part of it is fluted, and the upper 1s com- posed of a bas-relief coloured and gilt, consisting of ten figures, the principal of which are Triptolemus and Ceres; in another frieze, on the most projecting portion of the spout, are walking figures of panthers, lions, dogs and griffins; round the mouth of the vase is wound a wreath of gilt myrtle-leaves. The figures are dressed in bright-coloured garments, blue, red and green, and where, in some of the heads, the gilding has been rubbed off, you can perceive the delicacy of the hand which worked it to be as great as that with which a cameo is executed. It is called the Cumean vase, because it was originally found in the necropolis of that city. Far from having the horror that our modern professors express for polychromic art, the ancients, on the contrary, made it contribute to the decoration of 26 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, the exterior as well as the interior of their dwellings: there is absolute proof of the fact that the Greeks coloured their marble statues, as did the Romans their bronze busts. The memorable discoveries in the tombs of Vulci in 1828 and 1829, tended greatly to modify the direction that the study of ancient Ceramic art was taking. ‘The report of it by Professor Edouard Gerhard, of Berlin, in 1831, made a great sensation in the scientific world. In the present day the excavations at Nineveh, at different times by Messieurs Botta, Flandin, Layard, and Place, showed the . Br AN N fe UM OL Q Je p92 skal ST THE VASE OF NICOSTHENES, (Museum of Napoleon III.), close contact of the Assyrian art with that of the Greek potters, In 1844, Charles Lenormant estimated the number of painted vases discovered in the space of two centuries to be no less than 50,000. Since then scarcely more than 2000 or 8000 have been collected, The Renaissance did not trouble itself much about them, except with a view of imitating some of its rhytons or ewers without retaining their stiffness; at any rate some are to be traced on the aisha and cupboards in the houses of the wealthy, ENAMELLED FAIENCE, 27 With the exception of the Panathenaic amphore, offered to the Greek conquerors of the arena, full of the oil of the olives sacred to Minerva, one can scarcely venture to speculate on the character and intended use of the great number of different articles which have descended to us, and which, judging by the degree of finish to which they were brought, must have cost vast sums of money to complete. The black vases were doubtless for common use among the servants ; the others can only have been designed for ornament. They were buried beside those who had owned and cherished them, but it is seldom that they are found to contain human ashes. Some of the antique vases have signatures upon them. Nearly a hundred names of artists have been revealed; but a whole series of vases, the figures of which are black on a white ground, are signed by a potter named Nicosthenes, whose taste, whether as a manufacturer or a decorator, must have been exquisite. The vase, which is now in the possession of M. de Blacas, was found at Agrigentum. The one _ here represented, together with all those of the Campana collection, came from Coire, The paintings are generally of Bacchanalian subjects; this was supposed to excite the ardour of guests: also representations of Olympian divinities, the labours of Hercules, or the Trojan War. Sometimes the subjects were borrowed from the theatre, from the thousands of incidents of common life, such as bathing, hunting, dancing, dressing, the repast, and funereal games, the latter of which belong chiefly to the last period in which the art of painting on pottery flourished. Inscriptions scrawled with singular carelessness, as if the artist wished to keep the subject a secret to himself, consist of the names of mythological personages, sentences, and friendly or admiring exclamations, “Oh! beautiful child!” or, “Oh! what a handsome horse!” The Renaissance imitated these inscriptions in the articles of majolica which it was customary to offer on the occasion of a betrothal. The “hydria” here given belongs to the latter half of the seventh century before Christ, and was modelled by the Corinthian potters of Demarates. It is remarkable for the meanders and scrolls, the gadroons in the archaic style, and for the checkered zone which forms, as it were, a framework to the whole. The inscriptions on it are greatly ob- 28 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. literated and scarcely legible, but the figures clearly represent the parting between Hector and Andromache. For some centuries all the ornamented potteries of the Roman world were produced by the colonists or wandering artists of Greece. At one time they were esteemed as the greatest luxury, and were made use of even as an instrument of electioneering corruptions. RTT NCS C/@VVS Nicconeee = KKK KK KIKI AAATA AVA, AVY OK) x) XX KXKKKLKK KKK KY VV) RSG SKK KK RK KEN A KN XX er 1/00 Se HYDRIA IN THE CORINTHIAN STYLE, (Museum of Napoleon III.) Quintus Aponius was fined for “bribery and corruption,” for having presented one, whose vote he desired to win and make sure of, with an earthen amphora or jug.