Triumphs and Wonders of the 19th Century: The True Mirror of a Phenomenal Era / A volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress

by James P. Boyd

III. CERAMICS AND GLASS WORK.

From time immemorial to the present day men have been fashioning shapes of clay, experimenting with different kinds, different degrees of heat, and different chemical combinations to form glazes and colorings. The fundamental processes of pottery making have changed but little since prehistoric times, and wall pictures of the days of the Ptolemies show the potter’s wheel whirling much as it does at present, although, of course, many modern inventions have been made to facilitate different forms of work. In the famous Sèvres factories in France, established under royal patronage and still remaining government property, a modern device has rendered possible the making of large vases of extremely thin ware. To prevent the delicate paste of which these are made from collapsing by its own weight before it can harden, the vase or jar is moulded in an air-tight chamber, the mouth of the object sealed, and the air exhausted from the chamber, leaving the object in a vacuum. The air contained in itself is sufficient to hold up the sides until they harden and danger of collapse is over, when it can be fired. Attempts were made in vain to equal the delicacy of the Chinese egg-shell ware, when, one day an educated Chinese visitor to the factories observed the method employed, and exclaimed, “This is the way we make those cups,” and, taking a mould, he dipped it into the liquid paste, rinsed it around and emptied it at once. A thin film like a soap bubble remained in the mould, which hardened enough to form the dainty ware the workers had been trying without success to produce; so the Chinese method was at once adopted. About the middle of the last century an impetus of development in ceramic art appeared all over the continent of Europe and in England. This was probably due to the discovery, in different places, of kaolin or the fine clay of which porcelain is made, which stimulated the pottery industry and caused the establishment of many factories which are still working to-day. The Dresden works, founded in 1700, were hidden in an old fortress, and their secrets jealously guarded. After about a century they went into decay, but in 1863 were revived and reëstablished in large new buildings of their own, where dainty flowered ware is produced, which has again come into popular favor. Italian ceramics are apt to be florid and overloaded with decoration, that called “majolica” deriving its name from the island of Majorca, where it was first made. “Fayence” comes from Faenza, and the French form of the name, “faïence,” has been used to designate porcelain in general. The town of Limoges, in France, has been a centre of ceramic art since 1773, when a French firm established a factory for the production of a peculiarly fine ware, made possible by the superior quality of the kaolin found in the neighborhood. In 1839 a lady in New York showed the Haviland firm a cup of delicate ware, asking them to match it for her. It was so much finer than anything they had seen that they desired to import some for their own business. With this end in view, Mr. David Haviland took the cup and went to France trying to find where it had been made. He was directed to Limoges and, in the factories there, he tried to have English shapes and decorations copied in the exquisite ware. The conservatism and slow methods of the place were not equal to his demands, and he therefore established a factory of his own, which, since the middle of the century, has been the most important in the town.

In England, the most celebrated potteries are all over a century old, and the ceramic art has been developed to the highest degree both in technical and artistic directions. The works of the Doulton firm, who own many potteries, are particularly rich in color, and decoration, those from their factory at Lambeth being especially fine. So also are the Coalport wares, celebrated for their rich blue color, the Royal Worcester and the Crown Derby. In these English factories, and also in those on the Continent, artists of great skill are employed as decorators, and in the Wedgwood works the delicate cameo figures in white relief on a tinted ground were originated by the famous sculptor, John Flaxman. In America, the Trenton potteries turn out a vast quantity of wares of varying degrees of artistic excellence, and one factory has the secret of an old Irish ware, the Belleek, of indescribable delicacy, like an iridescent sea shell, long thought to be a lost art. The Rookwood pottery, of most artistic quality in design and color, is made in Cincinnati, and was the invention of a woman who has trained a school of girls as decorators; as has also the Tiffany firm in New York for their marvelous glass work. An adequate description of the work of this firm would fill a book, as they have developed undreamed-of possibilities in the use of glass for decorative purposes. They have revived forgotten arts of coloring and invented new processes of treatment, that give results like fairy work, no two pieces being alike. These and many other forms of industrial art products are brought to a high plane of perfection nowadays, although the word “art” is grievously abused, being applied to everything salable, from writing paper to soap. The great schools and institutions which teach the arts and industries combined are doing vast good, however, in improving public taste and teaching the world to discriminate between true art and false, and their influence can already be felt in higher standards of decoration in articles of common daily use.