Historic Ornament, Vol. 2 (of 2) / Treatise on decorative art and architectural ornament

by James Ward

Lace.

Hand-made laces are divided into two great classes—the “needle-point” and the “pillow-made”; the former is made with a needle on parchment, and the latter by twisting or plaiting threads from bobbins on a pillow.

Needle-point lace is an offspring of embroidery, and pillow-made lace is the highest artistic development of twisted and plaited threads. The foundation lines or threads of the pattern, various kinds of grounds, and the edging in needle-point lace, are usually worked over with a button-hole stitch in the ordinary course of making, while this distinguishing feature of needle-point lace is absent in the pillow-made varieties.

The earliest forms of lace were known as “lacis,” or darned netting, and a species of embroidery called “cutwork.” One kind of cutwork consisted in cutting, vandyking, or scalloping the edges of collars, cuffs, or garments into various shapes, and overcasting the edges with the button-hole stitch; another kind was when an embroidered design was wrought on stretched network, and the pattern wrought in looped stitches with the needle. This was the transitional form between embroidery and lace work.

“Lacis,” or darned netting, was worked in regulated stitches on a ground formed in squares, called “reseuil,” and sometimes it was formed of pieces of linen cut out and applied to the net. Ornamental open-work of cut linen and other material embroidered with silks of various colours, gold and silver threads, and woollen yarns, were made before the sixteenth century. All these varieties, though akin to lace work, required some kind of a foundation, but lace consists of a combination of threads alone, and has no foundation.

Pattern-books were published in Venice of designs for “cutworks” and embroidery of all kinds as early as 1527, and later, in 1531, a book was published by Tagliente, giving the descriptions and methods employed for making the various stitches used in embroidery for hangings, costumes, and altar-cloths. Some of the geometric designs in this book have been used for point-lace patterns. The term used by the Italians, punto in aere (aria), or “point in air,” is thought by Mr. Alan Cole to mean needle-point lace. The geometric design (Fig. 276) of Genoese point is something very much akin to the punto in aria patterns.

Fig. 276.—Genoese Point Lace.

At Antwerp and Cologne, and other cities in Germany and Flanders, imitations of the Venetian pattern-books were published, which served the lace makers of those countries for their patterns.

The Flemish lace workers imitated to a great extent the Venetian patterns, and in later years those of the French.

Lace is made in silk, cotton, flax, and sometimes in gold and silver thread, aloe-fibre, and hair.

In the early kinds of lace the pattern was united by single threads covered with button-hole stitch, and edged with little loops, the flowers or pattern made of compact “clothing,” or woven threads (Fig. 277D), and the ground in its simplest variety by meshes made by plaiting (Fig. 277A), as in the Brussels and Honiton four-thread ground, or in other varieties, by simple twisting (Fig. 277B).

The ground or mesh (réseau) is usually hexagonal, and is worked together with the pattern in the Valenciennes, Mechlin, and Buckingham laces, but in the Brussels and Honiton the ground is worked in afterwards, or the pattern is sewn on. Other fancy grounds or “fillings” are called “modes” or “brides,” which consist of little ties ornamented with “picots” or small loops (see Figs. 280, 284). A more elaborate form of fillings may be seen in the Brussels and Alençon lappets (Figs. 278, 279); in the latter may be seen lozenges and flat hexagons of a solid character set in frames of hexagons and on the intersections of the squares. This groundwork has been termed réseau-rosacé.

Fig. 277.—A, Brussels ground; B, Two-thread Mesh; D, Woven Ground.

The outline around the pattern in some laces is called the “cordonnet”; it is an important feature of the Alençon point lace (Fig. 279), where it consists of a horsehair overcast with a button-hole stitch of thread; it is also a distinctive mark of the pillow-made Mechlin lace (Fig. 283), but never occurs in the true or vraie Valenciennes.

Fig. 278.—Lappet; Brussels; Eighteenth Century.

The oldest of white hand-made laces is the Italian needle-point variety, which is a development of embroidery. It is difficult to give the exact date of the invention of needle-point lace, for in the earliest specimens of Italian work, in which the patterns are copied from the geometric designs of the Venetian pattern-books, they are usually a mixture of needle-point and of plaited and twisted work, but the latter may have been done with a hooked needle, and not pillow-made. On the other hand, before point lace was so universally made by the Venetians, the pattern-books were published about the middle of the sixteenth century for merletti a piombini, or “lace made with leaden bobbins”—probably a species of pillow-made lace—and some Italian work of this kind is still in existence that is quite as early in date as that of the oldest needlepoint variety. This would prove that there was little or no difference in the age of either invention, although perhaps priority ought to be given to the needle-point variety.

Fig. 279.—Lappet; Point d’Alençon; Eighteenth Century.

Guipure is a name that has been given to lace in which the flowers are united with ties or “brides picotees” (Fig. 280), but the term guipure is more properly a kind of filigree work made with stiffened cords like gimp or wire, the pattern being formed of gimp bent into a flattened design by the needle, and united where the forms touch each other (Fig. 281).

The patterns in the early laces were, as we have seen, purely geometric forms, such as squares with circles enclosed, divided by radiating lines and diagonals, rosettes, lozenges, and small trimming borders of rectangular panels, all worked on foundation lines that resembled in some degree the main lines of a spider’s web.

By degrees these patterns developed into a more solid massing of the flower forms, and the ties, or brides, became more irregular, but at the same time more evenly distributed.

Sometimes, as in Venetian point lace, the brides had little flowers worked on them, and in many instances the larger forms were raised to a considerable height or thickness. The groundwork in some of the scroll designs of Venetian point laces is composed of regular hexagons, and this was the starting-point of the future hexagonal mesh grounds.

Fig. 280.—Guipure; Flemish; Seventeenth Century.

Raised scroll work is peculiar to the Venetian point laces of the best period—the end of the seventeenth century.

Flemish lace was mostly of the pillow-made variety, but some point work was also executed, principally at Brussels. Mechlin, Lille, and Valenciennes were all famous for their pillow-made laces.

Returning to the development of patterns in lace, we find that France led the way in design from the early years of the eighteenth century. Prior to this time, Colbert, the Minister of Louis XIV.—whose far-sightedness in the matters of art did so much for France—succeeded in establishing lace-making centres at Alençon, Argentan, Quesnoy, Arras, Rheims, &c., and the patterns of lace then in favour partook of the prevailing style of Louis-Quatorze ornament with a mixture of floral forms, more or less realistic in character (Fig. 279). The latter illustration is that of a lappet of “point d’Alençon” fabric, which is the most elaborate and most expensive of all French laces. Another French point lace is that known as “point d’Argentan,” and if not a variety of Alençon lace, is very much like it. This lace is noted for its clear and strong-meshed ground.

Fig. 281.—Guipure Lace; Italian; Seventeenth Century.

Valenciennes lace, made in the French town of that name, is one of the oldest pillow-made laces, dating from the fifteenth century; the best Valenciennes, however, has been made at Yprès, and is a very soft and flat variety of fabric, with the meshes plaited, not twisted, has no cordonnet around the edges, and is very floral in design. “Fausse” Valenciennes is an irregular and slightly coarser variety than the “vraie” or true Valenciennes. Mechlin lace is similar in design to Valenciennes, but has the cordonnet outline, and has the meshes of the ground partly twisted and partly plaited (Fig. 283).

Lille and Arras laces have fine single grounds: four of the six sides of the mesh are formed by the twisting of two threads, and the other two sides by simply crossing the threads. Lille was formerly famous for its black straight-edged laces. Chantilly laces were made in white and black silk, but now similar black silk laces are made at Bayeux in Normandy, and at Auvergne, an old-established centre. Laces are now made in all kinds of materials.

Fig. 282.—Finest Raised Venetian Point.

Brussels lace has always been a much-prized variety: it is made both in the “point à l’aiguille” or needle-point, and in “point plat” or pillow-made, and sometimes it is a mixture of both, where the flowers are made separate in needle-point and are worked in afterwards to the various “modes” and mesh or net grounds. The Brussels mesh is peculiar in having two of its hexagonal sides longer than the other four, the former two being plaited with four threads, while the latter four are composed of a two-thread twist, and the cordonnet is well raised around the pattern and is plaited. The patterns in Brussels lace are of all kinds, but are chiefly imitations of French designs; it is a common thing to find Alençon and other French patterns copied in this lace. In France, Brussels lace was known by the name of “point d’Angleterre,” from the fact that great quantities of it were imported, and also smuggled into England during its prohibited importation in the lace-weaving period of Charles II.

Fig. 283.—Border of Mechlin Lace.

Ancient Spanish point-lace was like the Venetian raised work, but much of the so-called Spanish lace was really Flemish, and was largely imported from the Spanish Netherlands.

Honiton in Devonshire, and Buckinghamshire are the chief centres of the lace making in England. Honiton lace is pillow-made, and is similar to Brussels in fabrication, the designs of which were originally sprigs of flowers, but have developed to a kind of guipure work held together by “brides” (Fig. 284).

Fig. 284.—Honiton; Modern.

Buckinghamshire lace is also pillow-made, and resembles Flemish lace in design, but is a little more irregular and weaker in drawing.

Irish lace is known under the name of Carrickmacross—a kind of cut linen work; Limerick—a species of embroidery; and point lace, made in Ulster and elsewhere in Ireland (Fig. 285).

Many efforts have been made in recent years to revive the Irish lace-making industry, which have been attended with a good measure of success, particularly in the schools attached to the convents.

A great modern revival of lace making has taken place in the island of Burano, near Venice, which dates from the year 1872. This is due to the energy and ability of Madame Bellario, assisted by the patronage of the Queen of Italy and other members of the royal family. The variety made is the needle-point, and the designs are mostly good copies of the old Venetian and seventeenth-century French patterns.

Fig. 285.—Irish Point; Modern.

Machine-made lace has been brought to an advanced state of perfection, and Nottingham in England, where the first machines were set up, is now the great centre of this industry. The machine on which lace is made is a development of the stocking-knitting machine, and lace nets were first made on these machines about 1770. Heathcote, of Nottingham, invented the bobbin net machine, and Leaver invented the lace machine which is still in use with various improvements and modifications. Almost any kind of lace can now be imitated by the machine, but it is easily distinguished from the hand-made varieties by the greater regularity of texture, the absence in the machine-made point lace of any imitation of the button-hole stitch and of the elaborate plaiting that is found in the pillow hand-made laces.

CHAPTER VII.
MOSAICS.

The word mosaic is applied generally to a decorative work executed with small cubes or tesseræ made from various coloured marbles or enamels, cut into convenient sizes according to the requirements or scale of the design.

These cubes of enamels or marbles are placed in a bed of cement which is first spread on the surface of the wall or panel. The composition of this cement has varied in the different periods and countries and according to the nature of the ground which receives it.

The Italian method is to spread on the wall a thick coating of mastic cement composed of marble dust or powdered stone, lime, and linseed oil; when this cement is partly set a coating of fine plaster is laid on the top and brought up to the level of the intended surface of the mosaic; the design is traced on this surface, and the plaster is then cut away with a fine small chisel, little by little, just sufficient at a time to receive a small quantity of the tesseræ or cubes, which are first dipped in moist cement and inserted in their proper places, matching the colour copied from the cartoon. When the work is finished the surface is brought to a uniform level by a polishing process.

Some of the earlier kinds of mosaic were composed of pieces of marble or other stones cut in geometric slabs or rectangular shapes; this kind was called by the Romans lithostratum, and was used chiefly in pavements; opus sectile is a kind of pavement mosaic made of different colours, the marbles being cut into small regular portions; opus tesselatum is a variety of the opus sextile, but has its component parts made of geometric forms in which straight and parallel lines predominate in the design; and opus vermiculatum has its tesseræ composed of small cubes or bits of enamel (glass mosaic), terra-cotta, or marble, which are cut into all kinds of shapes, so as to form a more pliant or softer contour to the proposed design. This latter variety is used in picture mosaics and in the goldsmiths’ work and jewellery made at the present time in Rome and Venice.

Another kind of mosaic used in pavement is that known as opus Alexandrinum. Large slabs of different coloured marbles have been used as floor pavements and as wall linings, both on the exterior and in the interior of churches and other buildings in Italy and elsewhere. Most of this work is of a geometric pattern; the different pieces of stone, marble, terra-cotta, or enamel, being cut into exact shapes to fit a preconceived pattern, form a species of inlay, and do not therefore come under the head of a true mosaic. Coloured marbles and precious stones have been used in the decoration of furniture by the Italians and French, which is known by the name of “Florentine mosaic,” or “pietra dura.”

A species of mosaic work resembling enamels in appearance was executed by the Egyptians, a method in which stones and coloured pastes were cut to fit into metal shapes, as may be seen in the pectoral ornaments and diadems (see Figs. 142, 143, former volume).

In the Museum of Turin there is an Egyptian sarcophagus inlaid with precious stones, but it can hardly be called true mosaic work.

The Greeks were very skilful in mosaic, and were doubtless the inventors of the enamels used by themselves and by the Romans afterwards under the name of musivum—from whence the word mosaic is derived. The Italians called these enamels smalto or smalts.

Nearly all the remains of antique mosaic that have been preserved to our days have been executed in Italy or in countries that were under the Roman sway, but usually the work has been done by Greek artists or under Grecian influence.

Fig. 286.—Roman Mosaic, from Woodchester.

Pliny mentions the name of Sosus, a Greek artist, who came to Italy to execute mosaics. To this artist is ascribed the celebrated mosaic of the doves perched on the rim of a basin—Cantharos—one of which is drinking from the water in the vessel. This mosaic is now in the Capitol at Rome, and came originally from the Villa of Hadrian. It is related by Pliny that Sosus made a floor in mosaic decorated with fragments of a repast, such as realistic representations of the remains of bones, vegetables, fish, a mouse gnawing at a nut, &c.

Great pavements, with all kinds of animated figures, both realistic and fanciful, representing combats of animals, fighting gladiators, circus and hunting scenes, with the figures sometimes of life size, in combination with allegorical subjects, tritons, nereids, and other marine deities, were common in the antique period in Italy.

Fig. 287.—Roman Mosaic, found at Avignon.

These great pavements were usually found enclosed in frames or borders composed of ornament, or of smaller designs of birds, fishes, and marine animals. The borders, however, are often modern work, and are generally restorations or additions. Besides being found at Rome and other places in Italy, these large Roman mosaics have been found at almost every place that was formerly a Roman province.

Many good examples have been discovered in France, chiefly in the Basses-Pyrénées, and in England, at Woodchester, Withington in Gloucestershire, London, and other places (Figs. 286, 287).

The Roman mosaics executed in the provinces were, however, of a ruder kind than those found at Rome and at other places in Italy (Fig. 288).

Fig. 288.—Ancient Roman Mosaic.

In the Græco-Roman collection at the British Museum may be seen representations of colossal figures in mosaic from Carthage, and a floor pavement 40 feet by 12 feet from Halicarnassos. One of the most important examples of Roman mosaic was found in the seventeenth century in the Temple of Fortune at Palestrina—the ancient Praeneste. It represents landscape scenes placed in superimposed sections, through which runs a river, supposed by some authorities to represent the mouth of the Nile; islands are represented on which are monuments, temples, trees, farms, climbing plants, animals, and figures engaged in agricultural and hunting pursuits. The animals depicted are chiefly those which are native to Egypt; besides these there are some fantastic creatures represented common to the mythology of that country, as well as to Greece and Rome; the inscriptions and names of the animals are rendered in Greek characters, Greek being the official language used at that period in Egypt and at the Court in Rome, as well as being the native language of the artists who executed the work. All this goes to strengthen the opinion formed by the Abbé Barthélemy, in opposition to others, that this great mosaic picture represents the voyage of the Emperor Hadrian on the Upper Nile, through Egypt, to the Elephantine Island.

Mosaic pavements with subjects of combats of lions and bulls in a savage landscape, executed in the same manner as the Palestrina mosaic, have been found at Pompeii in the ruins of Hadrian’s Villa, a building which he had constructed in imitation of the various styles of architecture of the different countries which he had visited.

A celebrated mosaic, of a much higher and earlier order of art, is the representation of the Battle of Arbela, or Issus, now preserved in the Naples Museum. This battle was fought between the Greek and Persian forces in the year 331 (B.C.), in which Alexander the Great was victorious over Darius the Persian. Alexander is represented on horseback in the act of throwing his lance at a Persian satrap; horsemen, chariots, and foot soldiers are all represented with great vigour and in correct drawing; the whole composition is excellent, and represents the Greek army in the decisive moment of victory.

This great work was found in the House of the Faun at Pompeii in the year 1830, and is immeasurably superior to anything of its kind hitherto found in that buried city. It has, no doubt, been a copy in mosaic of a picture or fresco painted by a Greek artist. Important portions of the work are missing, but enough remains to testify to the beauty and greatness of this monument of Grecian art. Fig. 289 represents the head of a Persian soldier in the mosaic.

A border was found with this work which represents a river with alligators, hippopotami, aquatic birds, and river plants, all disposed in a careless manner; this border is evidently a later Roman addition to the work.

Another antique mosaic picture in the Museum at Naples is the seated figure of the tragic poet found in a house at Pompeii.

Fountains, columns, dados, wall panels, as well as floor decorations, were common objects of mosaic treatment with the Romans, and many houses of the better classes at Pompeii have been lavishly decorated with this imperishable material. A singular peculiarity was the almost exclusive representation of the human figure on floors, while the wall spaces only received ornamental compositions.

Fig. 289.—Head in Mosaic, from the “Battle of Issus.”

It appears from this that the Romans never thoroughly understood the true value of mosaic as a means of architectural decoration, and it was not until about the fourth century of our era that the walls and vaults of churches at Rome were treated with pictorial mosaic. For a long time in Italy the character of the design was strongly influenced by the old classic traditions, which impregnated the germs of the early Christian art of the catacombs of S. Calixtus and S. Agnese (see Figs. 332, 333, former vol.). This influence hardly ever passed away from the works of Italian artists, for down to the sixteenth century there has been many examples of church decoration in which a mixture of Pagan and Christian elements are found.

The remaining mosaics of the central cupola in the church of S. Constance at Rome consist of a Pagan composition—the “Triumph of Bacchus”—worked out in the Roman style, and another vaulted compartment in the same church has a mosaic decoration consisting of a vine spreading over the whole surface, amongst the branches and leaves of which are children gathering the grapes. At two of the sides are grape-laden waggons drawn by oxen, and figures pressing out the grape juice in the vats. From the subjects of the mosaics in this building it was formerly thought to be a temple of Bacchus; but as the vine is one of the commonest symbols of the Christian faith, and as a mixture of Christian and Pagan elements was a very common occurrence in the age of Constantine, there is no hesitation in describing these mosaics, and the church itself, as early Christian work.

A very important mosaic of the fourth century still exists in the apse of the Church of S. Pudentia at Rome. The design is not altered from the original, but much of the work has been restored at different times.

A colossal figure of Christ is enthroned in the centre of a composition which has an architectural background of temples and churches. St. Peter and St. Paul are represented on either side of the central figure, with other sacred personages, and above in the clouds float the sacred emblems of the Evangelists.

After Constantine removed the seat of his empire from Rome to Byzantium (330) mosaic decoration was used in many of the Eastern churches in Macedonia and other places in the Byzantine empire, but it was not until the sixth century that the decided Byzantine Greek style was developed in mosaic work—notably in the mosaics of the great church of Santa Sophia. During the fifth century at Rome, and more especially at Ravenna, the basilicas and Christian churches were decorated on the vaulted ceilings, walls, arches, and spandrels with mosaics, of which the general design and ornamental details were still strongly influenced with the spirit of the antique; but although these works retained much of the dignity pertaining to the latter, they were gradually losing the correctness of drawing which had characterised the mosaics of the fourth century.

In the chapter on Early Christian Architecture, in the former volume of this work, pages 288-300, we have drawn attention to some of these mosaics.

The church of Santa Sophia was burned down in 533, and the rebuilding of it was finished and the church consecrated in 559. Much of the interior was shortly afterwards covered with mosaic decoration. Near the summit of the cupola was a colossal figure of Christ enthroned, with his arm raised upwards in the act of blessing; below the sacred figure were ranged the Apostles, and in the lower pendentives were groups of people. In the chancel below is a figure of the Virgin enthroned, with the Infant Christ standing on her knees; in the great niches are figures of martyrs and bishops, and in the spaces above the pillars figures of the prophets.

On the walls of the narthex, Christ is represented seated on a throne, the crowned figure of Justinian prostrate at his feet, and on the gold background are the heads of the Virgin and St. Michael. In colour the mosaics are sober and refined, the expressions and attitudes of the figures solemn, and often beautiful; the costumes follow the style of the antique.

According to Salzenberg, who published his great work on Santa Sophia at Berlin in the year 1854, the colouring of the draperies of Christ and his Apostles is white, the Virgin has blue robes, and the other figures of prophets, angels, and martyrs are in varied colouring. The shades of the folds in the draperies are expressed by quiet blues and greens, the lights being heightened by silver markings. All the mosaics have a ground of gold, and bands of gold enrich the garments of Christ. Although many of the great mosaics of this church belong to the sixth century, some of them are, however, works of a later period. Among other arts, Justinian encouraged mosaic decoration in the highest degree, and is said to have ornamented the palace of his capital with mosaic pictures representing the victories of his armies.

Some famous mosaics were executed during the sixth century at Ravenna, notably in the basilicas of S. Apollinare-Nuovo, S. Apollinare-in-Classe, and S. Vitale; in the former there is a fine mosaic, the subject being the Kiss of Judas, and a group of figures where Pontius Pilate is represented washing his hands after the trial of Christ, both of which works again show the antique influence.

In the beautiful basilica of S. Apollinare-in-Classe the figure of Christ is represented standing and blessing with uplifted hands, surrounded by the symbols of the Evangelists and a flock of sheep; the angels Gabriel and Michael and the Transfiguration are also represented.

The Church of S. Vitale, which was built somewhat after the model of Santa Sophia, has the celebrated mosaics representing processions in state of the Emperor Justinian and the Empress Theodora, who presided at the dedication of the church. The dresses of the principal personages in these mosaics are richly decorated with Byzantine geometric patterns, figured embroidery, and jewellery. In the apse of the church is the celebrated youthful figure of Christ, who is represented without a beard; it is remarkable for its benign expression and softness of its adolescent beauty. The mosaics of S. Vitale are distinctly Greek in character, unlike those of the two former churches, which were executed by Roman mosaicists brought from Italy to Ravenna by Theodoric the Ostrogoth in the early years of the sixth century.

The seventh century was almost barren in mosaic works, and the eighth century does not seem to have produced more than a few tentative efforts, mainly in countries outside Italy.

It is related that Adrian I., who was Pope between the years 772-795, gave permission to Charlemagne to remove several mosaics from churches at Ravenna, the materials of which were used in the decoration of the dome of his chapel at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). These mosaics were destroyed by fires in the years 1656 and 1730. Some drawings of them were made before the second fire by Ciampini, and published by him at Rome in 1699. These works were not, however, of any great artistic value. The art of the mosaicist was fast becoming only a caricature of its former self, for the work of the ninth century was characterized by exceedingly bad drawing and savage colouring. Uninviting and even terrible representations of Christ, of the Virgin, angels, martyrs, and prophets were only too common. It may be said with good reason that in Rome and in the West during the ninth century, that the zenith of ugliness had been attained in the design of mosaics, and in place of the careful grouping and correct drawing of the works of the fourth to the sixth century we have instead figures of great dimensions and multiplication of attributes.

At the time we speak of there was not this decadence of art in the Eastern Empire, for many fine mosaics were executed to the order of Basil the Macedonian (867-886), under whose protection art generally was much encouraged. Some of the mosaics of Santa Sophia and of other churches and palaces at Constantinople were executed during this period.

However, from the tenth to the twelfth centuries the art of mosaic decoration, with a few notable exceptions, was in a slow state of decadence in the East, but the old Greek artistic spirit broke in other and in new directions, as we have witnessed in the wealth of Byzantine enamels, carved ivories, bas-reliefs, repoussé work, miniatures, and illuminated manuscripts.

In the eleventh century some fine mosaic floors were executed in France. Examples of this date were found in the old churches of Sordes in the Department of Landes, and of Lescar in the Basses-Pyrénées. Some of these pavements have ornamental compositions of geometrical interlacings and conventional foliage, and others have hunting scenes in which animals, figures, and birds are treated flatly, after the Persian or Oriental manner of inlaid work or like textile designs.

In the thirteenth century towards the latter end, in the dawn of the Renaissance, design in mosaic began to feel the reviving influence in common with all Italian art. In the mosaics of this century executed at Rome we see something of the poetry and dignity which belonged to the great works of the fifth century. This turning-point was in a great measure due to the influence of Cimabue, the founder of Italian painting (1240-1300), who was then a great personality in Italian art.

The most important mosaics of this period in Italy were those which decorate the tribune of the basilica of St. John Lateran at Rome, executed by Jacobus Toriti between the years 1287 and 1292, and those of the tribune of S. Maria Maggiore in Rome, executed also by Toriti during the last few years of the thirteenth century and finished about 1302.

The design of the former mosaics is simple in arrangement. On a gold ground, symmetrically arranged, are the figures of six saints and Apostles, with smaller figures of St. Francis and St. Anthony of Padua advancing towards a central cross, from underneath which flows the four rivers of Paradise into the Jordan beneath. Above is the celebrated head of Christ, the face having a benign expression. This was formerly supposed to be of an older creation, but it is quite likely to have been designed by Toriti. The head is surrounded by a plain gold nimbus, and around and above it, on a blue ground with clouds, is a glory of angels in the form of an arc. Below this, on the wall of the tribune, between pointed window openings, Christ and the Apostles are represented on a smaller scale.

In the tribune of S. Maria Maggiore the design is grander and more decorative than the St. John Lateran mosaics, and indeed ranks as the finest work of art of its period. In a large central medallion of the apse Christ and the Virgin are enthroned, Christ being represented in the act of crowning the Virgin. A crowd of angels are on either side and at the lower parts of the medallion. The ground of the latter is blue, sown with golden stars; beyond, on either side of the adoring angels, are the upright figures of Apostles and saints on a gold ground, and above them, filling the upper surrounding space, are conventional vines in whose scrolly branches birds of various kinds are found. Below this composition the River Jordan is represented, and the walls of the tribune are occupied with small compositions representing scenes in the life of Christ. In the loggia of the same church are a series of well-designed mosaics inscribed with the name of the artist who designed them—Philippus Rusuti—who is not known with certainty to have executed any other work. They had been formerly ascribed to the Florentine mosaicist Gaddo Gaddi, a friend of Cimabue; he died in 1312.

Gaddi, according to Vasari, had been invited to Rome to complete the unfinished mosaics of Toriti at the Church of S. Maria Maggiore after the death of the latter artist, and he occupied himself with the storied mosaics representing the foundation of that church in a series of four compositions. It is still, however, a matter of doubt as to how much of these mosaics belong to the hand of Rusuti or Gaddi. The latter artist executed some subjects in the dome of the Baptistery at Florence, in the Cathedral of Pisa, and the mosaics which decorate the inner lunette in the portal of the Cathedral at Florence.

Fig. 290.—Geometric Mosaic, Church of Ara Cœli, Rome.

Gaddi followed the style and aims of Cimabue; his work was poetic in conception, and in his execution he leaned to the Byzantine methods, but in drawing and composition he was greatly excelled by the Roman mosaicist Toriti.

The celebrated Roman family of the Cosmati were excellent mosaicists. Giovanni Cosmato, son of the elder artist of that name, executed some fine work on the tomb of Gonsalo Roderigo in the Church of S. Maria Maggiore, and on monuments in S. Maria sopra Minerva. A variety of mosaic was much used in Italy at different times, the earliest dating from the sixth century, which consisted in decorating pulpits, screens, and small altars with a geometric inlay of small squares and lozenges of gold and coloured tesseræ which were inserted into grooves of white marble (Fig. 290).

About the year 1351, Pietro Cavallini, a native of Rome and a supposed pupil of the painter Giotto, was commissioned to execute some mosaics in the Church of S. Maria Transtevere at Rome. The design and style of these works were strongly influenced if not partly copied from the frescoes of Giotto in the Arena Chapel at Padua.

Cavallini also executed in mosaic the celebrated Navicella, from the design by Giotto, which decorates the vestibule of the old basilica church of St. Peter’s at Rome. This work represents a ship in which the Apostles are seen, and Christ and Peter are figured walking on the sea.

With the exception of a few notable works in St. Peter’s at Rome, in St. Mark’s at Venice, some unfinished work of Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-95), and the work of Pesselli in the Church of Or-San-Michele at Florence (1416), the fifteenth century was not a prosperous period for mosaic. This is accounted for by the rapid development of the Italian schools of painting, which advanced during this century with incredible swiftness, and as painting advanced, mosaic decoration retreated before its more popular rival. The mosaicist had to make room for the fresco painter, who soon became the successful competitor of the former in the work of church decoration.

Regarding the mosaics of St. Mark’s at Venice, it may be stated that they date from the eleventh century to the nineteenth.

The interior of this church is richly decorated on the vaults and upper parts of the walls with mosaics on grounds of gold, the other parts are covered with various rich marbles, and the floor is mosaic designed in the Byzantine style. In the twelfth century the principal apse, the cupola of the choir, and some of the chapels were decorated in mosaic. The great central cupola has mosaics of the eleventh century representing the Virtues, and twelfth-century work with the subjects of the “Virgin with Angels and Apostles,” the “Evangelists,” &c. To the same century belong the mosaics in the cupola of the choir, consisting of the figures of Christ, the Virgin, David and Solomon, and symbols of the Evangelists; the figure of St. Clement in the vault of the terminal chapel of St. Clement is ascribed to the twelfth century, and the mosaics of this chapel representing the life of the saint are thirteenth-century work.

The most important mosaic of the latter century in St. Mark’s is that which decorates the façade, the subject being “The Dedication of the Church.”

From the remains of the original mosaics which have not been remodelled by the restorers of later times, it has been seen that the work of the above centuries at St. Mark’s kept to the spirit and traditions of the Byzantine school. The work of restoration, however, has been so great in modern times that nearly all the mosaics belonging to a date prior to the sixteenth century have been executed afresh, so it can hardly be said there are any perfect or genuine Byzantine mosaics left.

Those of the sixteenth century in St. Mark’s are more like paintings in their general effect than monumental works for the decoration of the fabric. Pictorial effect and an appeal to the emotional faculties were aimed at by the artists and governing body of the church, rather than simplicity or a feeling for the decorative fitness of the material. The painters Titian, Pordenone, Tintoret, Paul Veronese, and the sculptor and architect Sansovino made designs for the mosaics, and their cartoons were interpreted by mosaicists, the principal of whom were Vicenzo and Domenico Bianchini, the brothers Zuccati, Bozza, Rizzo, Gaëtano, &c.

In this century, at Rome, in the cupola of the Chigi Chapel in S. Maria del Popolo, a celebrated mosaic was executed by the Venetian mosaicist Luigi da Pace, from a design by the great painter Raphael. It bears the date 1516, and has for its subject the Creation of the World. The Almighty is represented surrounded by seraphim, and in eight compartments are mythological figures representing the planets. Angel figures of great beauty are seated on the signs of the Zodiac, which occupy the lower parts of the mosaic.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the principal mosaics executed in Italy were those which decorate the Church of St. Peter’s at Rome. In these periods the Pontifical fabrique or studio for the production of the smalto and for the execution of the mosaics was in a state of activity. The fabrique had various locations in the vicinity of the church from the time of its establishment in 1528, and was finally set up in the Vatican in 1825 by Leo XIII. The most important period in the history of the Pontifical ateliers was during the early half of the eighteenth century, when it was under the direction of Pierre-Paul Cristofari, who was assisted in the production of the variously coloured material by the chemist Mattioli.

The mosaics which cover the cupolas, the altars of the various chapels, the pendentines, tympani, and other spaces, have been executed by mosaicists who were not the designers of the subjects.

This was the general practice in the Renaissance periods. One noteworthy exception to this rule may be noticed in the work of the artist Muziano de Brescia, who executed the mosaics of the Gregorian Chapel at St. Peter’s from his own designs, for which work he received the commission from Pope Gregory XIII. (1572-1585). Muziano was an imitator of Michelangelo, and is best known by his work in mosaic. As a rule the mosaics of St. Peter’s, like all those of the Renaissance period, are not to be compared for dignity and repose with those of the early Christian era, nor did they fulfil the true aim of monumental wall decoration, but sought rather to imitate as closely as possible the finish of oil or fresco painting. The “Transfiguration” after Raphael is not a success as a mosaic. It is believed to have been executed by Cristofari from a drawing enlarged from the original by Stefano Pozzi (1708-1768).

In the great cupola the mosaic has for its subject “The Eternal Father,” surrounded by cherubims. In other compartments are angels in adoration, cherubims, Jesus, Mary, John the Baptist, Paul, the twelve Apostles and their attributes. These mosaics are from designs by the Chevalier d’Arpin (1560-1640), and rank among the best works of their kind in St. Peter’s.

In the present century there has been some noted revivals of mosaic decoration in France and in England.

During the first thirty years of this century a royal manufactory was set up in Paris under the superintendence of Belloni, an Italian artist who came from the Pontifical atelier of Rome. Mosaic work of all kinds was executed at this studio, such as miniatures, pictures, and pietra-dura, or Florentine mosaic, for the encrusted decoration of furniture, as well as important works for pavements, which were designed in the classical style of the period. The principal work of Belloni is the pavement of the “Salle Melpomène” in the Louvre. It is a composition divided into five compartments, each having figure subjects, and has an extremely rich border of frets, foliage, and rosettes.

Some fine mosaics of a more recent date are the decorations of the foyer and other parts of the Grand Opera House in Paris, executed from the designs of M. Charles Garnier, the architect of the building, M. de Curzon, and others, by the mosaicists Salviati and Facchina of Venice.

The new cathedrals at Marseilles and Lyons have been recently decorated with mosaics more or less in the style of the Ravenna work of the fifth century, but the principal part of these works consists of ornamental compositions, such as doves with olive-branches, monograms, stars, and borders of romanesque ornament. Some still more recent work is the decoration of the apse of the Pantheon in Paris, from the designs of M. E. Hébert and the late M. Galland, who furnished the ornamental designs.

In England, during the present half of this century, there has[has] been several attempts to popularise mosaic decoration. Full-length figures of the chief ancient and modern sculptors, painters, and architects have been designed by Lord Leighton, Sir E. J. Poynter, E. Armitage, V. Prinsep, W. F. Yeames, F. W. Moody, and others; these have been executed in glass mosaic and in English ceramic mosaic, and form part of the decoration of the South Court in the Kensington Museum.

In the Houses of Parliament a mosaic has been executed from the design, “St. George,” by Sir E. J. Poynter; and other examples are the mosaics on the monument to Prince Albert designed by Sir Gilbert Scott.

But the most important efforts during the last few years are the mosaic decorations in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

From the year 1863 until 1892 the eight spandrels of the dome were filled with mosaics, the subjects being the four Evangelists, designed by Mr. Watts, R.A., and Mr. Brittan, and the four greater Apostles by the late Alfred Stevens. The work of these spandrels was carried out by Dr. Salviati of Venice.

In the spring of 1891 Mr. W. B. Richmond, R.A., undertook the great work of designing the cartoons, and of superintending the mosaic decoration of the eastern end of the cathedral, including the apse, the original sanctuary bay, and the choir.

The central panel in the roof of the apse is occupied with a representation of “Our Lord in Majesty,” seated on a rainbow throne, and clothed in light-coloured robes. The background is composed of a great whirl of wings; the sun and moon are also represented. The panels on either side of this subject contain figures of the recording angels, which are Byzantine in style of design; as the whole of the mosaics are, but perhaps not so much in degree as the figures of these angels. Mr. Richmond had made a special study of the Ravenna mosaics, and was no doubt rightly influenced by the style of design and methods of execution of these early works.

The three saucer domes of the choir have subjects representing respectively the creation of birds, fishes, and animals of the land; and the pendentives of the saucer domes are each filled with figures of angels, their arms being extended, as if in the act of bringing down messages from heaven to the earth. Inscriptions in Latin, consisting of appropriate scriptural texts, explain the subjects of the pendentives.

Fig. 291.—Mosaic from the Alhambra.

The spaces at the sides of the clerestory windows are occupied with figures of the Sibyls, Prophets, builders of the Tabernacle or House of God, scenes from the Old Testament, and some secular figures.

The general effect of the mosaics is very rich, and the colouring exceedingly harmonious.

Fig. 292.—Saracenic Mosaic, from Monreale.

The smalto tesseræ used was made from opaque glass of many colours and shades, and the fractured edge was shown in every case as the surface of the mosaic; this was done in order to get greater brilliancy of colour, and to catch all the possible light that is reflected from the walls and floor of the church.

Portland stone composed the panels, and brick was the background material of the saucer domes, and in order to get a bed for the cement and tesseræ, these surfaces had to be cut away to a certain depth so that the mosaics would come flush when finished with the original surface. The tesseræ were inserted into a bed of red mastic cement, made chiefly of a mixture of red lead and linseed oil, a cement which ultimately sets as hard as the stone itself. The execution of the work was entrusted to Messrs. Powell of London, who employed a large staff of skilled assistants in this successful achievement.

Fig. 293.—Indian Mosaic, from the Taj Mehal.

The Saracens employed mosaic—as in the Alhambra in Spain—in the form of small tiles—azulejos—of glazed earthenware cut into geometric shapes, from which they made up their characteristic rectilinear patterns, and used this form of decoration to a great extent for walls, but rarely for floor pavements (Figs. 291, 292).

Some beautiful examples of mosaic work in the nature of inlaid marbles and precious stones occur in the Mohammedan buildings in India, the chief of which are the Taj Mehal at Agra (Fig. 293) and the great palace at Delhi. The latter has been noticed in the chapter on Indian Architecture in the former volume, and an illustration of the inlaid marble hall is given at Fig. 329 in the same volume.

CHAPTER VIII.
GLASS.

Fig. 294.
Glass Vase or Bottle; height,
3½ ins. (B.M.)

The manufacture of glass is of great antiquity. The invention has been ascribed to the Phœnicians, but specimens of glass beads, amulets, plaques, vases, and small phials or bottles have been found in some of the oldest Egyptian tombs. In the British Museum there is a small piece of blue opaque glass in the form of a lion’s head, which bears the prenomen of the Egyptian monarch Nuntef IV., belonging to the Fourth Dynasty (B.C. 2423-2380). There are also paintings on the walls of early tombs representing bottles with red wine, as well as figures engaged in glass-blowing.

A number of glass bowls, vases, and bottles from Nimroud may be seen in the British Museum, the earliest specimen of which is an Assyrian transparent glass vase with two handles, and is inscribed with the name of the monarch Sargon (B.C. 722-705). This is supposed to be the oldest known specimen of transparent glass (Fig. 294).

Fig. 295.
Phœnician Alabastron.

Many long-shaped little bottles—alabastron—of pale greenish, and others of brilliant colours, with slightly varied shapes, have been dug up from the ruins of Assyrian palaces, and have been found in most of the ancient tombs in Greece, Italy, and in the islands of Cyprus, Sardinia, and Rhodes. These little bottles have been made by the Egyptians, Assyrians, Phœnicians, and Greeks, and their shape, being consecrated by use, remained unchanged for many centuries; they were portable objects of barter, as glass beads also were with the Phœnicians, who distributed them in trade to all parts of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean (Figs. 295, 296).

Common forms of the Phœnician glass bottles were small vessels in the shapes of heads, and of dates, grapes, and other fruits, which were blown in moulds. These vessels probably came from the great workshops of Tyre and Sidon; some of them bear the names of their makers—Eugenes, Ennion, and “Artas the Sidonian.”

The shapes of many of these vessels are decidedly Greek, and if not Greek in manufacture, have been copied from the shapes of Greek pottery.

The colours used were yellow, turquoise, and white on blue, green, or brown, and a common arrangement of these was in zigzag or wavy alternating lines; in other examples the surface was reeded, as may be seen in the alabastron, Fig. 295.

Fig. 296.—Necklace of Glass and Gold, Phœnician. (B.M.)

Ancient Roman glass is of great variety in colour, and many specimens show the highest technical skill combined with great artistic beauty. The lovely iridescent effect on Roman and other antique glass is due to the chemical changes of the surface decomposition, and in other instances to the minute flaking of the glass, which reflects the light at various angles, and thus producing the prismatic hues.

At the time of the Roman occupation of Egypt, during the period of rule under the Ptolemies, glass making was a great industry in the latter country. It is said that the Romans learnt the art from the Egyptians, and it is known that many of the latter were brought to Rome to practise their art as glass-blowers.

The making of the glass known as mille-fiori was taught to the Romans by the Egyptians, and was extensively employed in vase and bottle making by the former; the Venetians from the fourteenth century have imitated the Romans in their uses of mille-fiori glass for bead making and other purposes, with great success.

The method of making this variety of glass consists in arranging a number of thin rods or threads of glass of the required variety of colours, gold being sometimes used; these united rods were then fused together by heat, and drawn out or twisted, so that when transverse sections were cut the pattern would always be the same.

Another way of mixing the colour in glass, which was employed by the Egyptians, Romans, and later by the Venetians, was in the making of regular patterns of mosaic-like designs of the various colours, and another was in imitating the precious stones and marbles, such as onyx, agate, serpentine, porphyry, and murrhine; the latter is supposed to be a variety of agate, with red and purple shades. The murrhine glass examples of Roman manufacture are very rare.

The Romans used these glass imitations of the precious stones and marbles to line their walls and floors, as in mosaic work.

Egyptian and Roman glass in their transparent varieties have such colours as yellow, purple, blue, green, and pink; opaque colours are generally found in shades of yellow, blue, green, and black. The most valuable kind of glass was that of the clearest white or crystal; this, it would appear, was the most difficult to make, as the commoner clear variety had usually a slight greenish or bluish hue.

The Romans made a special variety of glass ware which consisted of interlaced bands of opaque white or coloured glass, ingeniously made to form a pattern by twisting them with clear or coloured transparent glass, like that of the elegant lace-glass variety known as the “vitro di trina” of the Venetians (Fig. 302).

In the arts of glass cameo and intaglio engraving, and in the imitation of gems, the Romans were exceedingly skilful.

The cameo engraved glass was produced by placing a layer of white opaque glass on a ground of transparent blue, the design being formed by cutting away the white surface to the blue ground, leaving the blue as the background; the remaining white which formed the design was then carefully finished by engraving. Light and shade was produced according to the thicknesses of the cameo left by the engraver.

Fig. 297.—Ancient Roman Glass Bottle. (S.K.M.)

The celebrated Barberini or Portland Vase, in the British Museum, is made in a blue and white cameo. This splendid work of art was discovered in a marble sarcophagus near Rome, which is supposed to have been the tomb of the Emperor Alexander Severus. The vase is ten inches in height, is two-handled, and has for the subject of one side a figure decoration representing Thetis consenting to be the bride of Peleus, attended by Poseidon and Eros; on the other side is Peleus and Thetis on Mount Pelion, and on the bottom is a bust of Paris. The ground is transparent blue glass, and the subjects are beautifully engraved in cameo out of the superimposed white layer.

Fig. 298.—Roman Glass Tablet in relief. (S.K.M.)

A similar kind of vase, but smaller, was found at Pompeii, and is now in the Museum at Naples, and the remains of the Auldjo Vase in the British Museum is also in a similar style, the cameo decoration of it consisting of vine-leaves.

Intaglios and cameos, sometimes of a large size, were copied in glass from gems; these were usually cast in moulds, and many of them are of high value as works of art. (Fig. 298).

The Romans made window glass of small squares or oblongs, which was manufactured by rolling it on a plate.

In the early Christian period gold leaf was used as a means of decoration on glass: sometimes the gold was annealed to the surface, and sometimes it was placed, as the making of the gold smalto for mosaics, between two layers of thin glass, and afterwards fired. Patterns and figure subjects were executed in gold foil, and formed the decoration of glass dishes and bowls, the broken remains of which have been found in the Christian tombs of the Roman Catacombs.

Though extensive glass works are known to have existed at Constantinople and at Thessalonica between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, there are scarcely any remains of Byzantine glass in existence that can with certainty be ascribed to the Eastern empire, unless we except the five cups and two shallow basins of thick green glass that are decorated with Byzantine ornament, and which form part of the treasure of St. Mark’s at Venice. Glass was used in the windows of Byzantine churches and, of course, in the making of the mosaic tesseræ.

It is highly probable that glass objects were made in Syria, and at Damascus especially, since the Roman period, yet examples of the earlier work from these parts are very rare. The celebrated gold cup of Chrosroes (A.D. 531-579) is a Persian work which has been set with glass lozenges and rosettes. Other examples are small glass weights, discs, or tokens, and a Saracenic glass basin in the Cluny Museum at Paris, which has been made either in Egypt or Syria, and is known to date between 1279 and 1294.

With the above exceptions there is no authentic work that can be pointed to which dates earlier than the fourteenth century. The finest examples of Saracenic glass, some of which may be seen in our museums, are the beautiful enamelled glass mosque lamps (Fig. 299). They mostly date from the fourteenth century, and are usually decorated richly with Arabic inscriptions—sometimes with the name of the artist—in gold and coloured enamels.

In the city of Damascus glass cups and other vessels of great beauty were made at this period, having enamelled Saracenic decorations.

The “cups of Damascus” were much prized, and according to the inventories of the kings of England, France, and Germany, we learn that they were set in gold stands or mounts, and were usually presents to Western monarchs, brought by their ambassadors from the East.

The cup kept by the Musgrave family, and known as the “Luck of Edenhall,” is made in enamelled Saracenic glass, and has a leather covering of fifteenth-century workmanship.

Fig. 299.—Enamelled Oriental Glass Bottle and Mosque Lamp.

Venetian blown glass has always been renowned for its beauty, both in its elegance of form-as in the wine-glasses, goblets, and cups—and in the beautiful opalescent hues of its delicate colouring.

The making of glass in Venice began to assume great importance in the fourteenth century, but many small glass furnaces were in operation for more than a hundred years prior to this date.

The Venetians apparently, in the early period of the Renaissance, studied very closely the remains of the Roman glass, and eventually imitated and produced nearly all the kinds of glass that in former days were made in ancient Rome.

Another direct cause which led to the advancement of the glass makers’ craft in Venice was the parricidal conquest of Constantinople by the Christians of Rome, aided by the fleets of Venice, in 1204, for after the sacking of the Byzantine capital, most of the portable works of art of every kind-including the bronze horses that had been brought from Rome to Constantinople by its founder, and which now adorn the front of St. Mark’s-were carried off to Venice, and it is more than likely that after this the glass mosaic workers, among other Byzantine craftsmen, had come to Venice, where they found employment in the rising republic.

The work in the mosaic decoration of St. Mark’s doubtless helped to develop the making of glass in Venice, and the lagunes were rich in marsh-loving plants that would yield alkali and furnish the fine sand requisite for its manufacture.

Mention is made in one of the documents in the archives of Venice, dated 1090, of one Petrus Flavianus, who was a “phiolarius,” or glass maker, and the trade regulations of the glass makers’ societies or corporations are preserved at Venice and Murano, which show that in the thirteenth century they had become important bodies.

Glass furnaces were becoming so numerous in Venice that the Great Council decreed, in 1291, they should be demolished, but permitted them to be set up outside the city, in the suburban districts. In the following year, however, the decrees were altered to the effect that the small glass workers might remain in the Rialto (the city proper), provided fifteen paces were left between each atelier. These decrees were made to guard against a possible spread of fire.

It is supposed that this had the effect of moving many of the principal glass works to Murano, a district of Venice which had become renowned for the production of Venetian glass, and where to-day the eminent firm of Salviati & Co. have their extensive works.

The glass house at Murano, which was known as the “Sign of the Angel” in the early half of the fifteenth century, was the most renowned of the ateliers of that century. Angelo Beroviero was one of its earliest directors, who was succeeded by his son Marino in that position. The latter was a head or master of the Company of “Phioleri” (Glass Makers’ Corporation) in 1468, which was a very strong society at that time and enjoyed exceptional privileges from the city council.

The intercourse of Venice with the East furnished the Venetian glass makers with patterns of Damascus and Egyptian glass, and the enamelled and gilded Oriental varieties were imitated and improved on by the Murano artists. Some of the products of this period are preserved in the museums. The illustration (Fig. 300) is from a Venetian enamelled cup of green glass in the Kensington Museum.

In the sixteenth century the glass-making furnaces of Murano had increased to a great extent, and were placed under the special protection of the Council of Ten. Owing to the jealousy at this time of other European States, Venetian glass-blowers were bribed by offers of money and large salaries to set up furnaces abroad, and laws were then made forbidding workmen to leave the country to carry on glass making in other places under the penalty of death. This, however, did not prevent Venetian glass-blowers from taking service under the protection of foreign rulers in such countries as Flanders, Spain, and England.

The natural consequences followed, that the exports in glass from Venice to foreign countries became lessened, so much so that the workmen of Murano complained of being thrown idle for several months in the year.

Fig. 300.—Venetian Enamelled Glass; Fifteenth Century. (S.K.M.)

Venetian glass has been made in many colours, such as blue, green, purple, amber, and ruby, and in variegated mixtures of clear or transparent and opaque glass. The clear variety is remarkable for elegance of shape and fantastic designs of handles or wings, consisting of twisted and knotted interlacings, which were generally executed in blue or red colours and attached to the sides of wine-glasses and other vessels (Fig. 301). One beautiful variety of glass is clouded with a milky-like opalescent tint, which is supposed to be produced from arsenic. The opaque white glass is made by the addition of oxide of tin to the usual ingredients.

Fig. 301.—Venetian Glass of the Sixteenth Century. (J.)

Fig. 302.—Venetian “Vitro di trina.” (S.K.M.)

Glass was made by the Venetians to imitate precious stones, were streaked, splashed, or spotted with various colours, gold, and copper; the aventurine spotted glass was obtained from a silicate of copper.

The latticinio variety was formed of rods of transparent glass enclosing lines of opaque white glass forming patterns. The vitro di trina is the so-called lace-glass (Fig. 302); the latter and the mosaic-like or mille-fiori glass were made by the Venetians in imitation of the Roman varieties. Another variety was that known as a reticelli, in which ornament of opaque network sometimes enclosed air bubbles. That known under the German name of Schmelz is the variegated or marble opaque glass made in the Murano furnaces, which imitated chalcedony, lapis lazuli, tortoiseshell, and jasper. Crackled glass was made by the sudden cooling of the half-blown material; this was again heated and drawn out in order to increase the spaces between the crackled lines.

In the sixteenth century the forms of the Venetian glass vessels were of the Renaissance type; the long shanks and the wide bowls gave them an appearance of elegance and grace. The light and thin character of the material had also a great deal to do with the fragile look of elegance in Venetian glass of this period; the glass of the former (fifteenth) century was of a much thicker kind.

The lightness and superior strength of Venetian glass was due to the absence of lead in its composition, which is so much used in the modern flint glass.

The materials of the composition of the clear Murano glass are supposed to be—one part of alkali, obtained from ferns, moss, lichen, or seaweed, and two parts of pebbles of white quartz or fine clean white sand, and a small quantity of manganese, all well mixed together and melted in the furnace.

The colouring matter is produced from the oxides of various metals, as in the vitreous coloured glazes used in the enamels for glazed pottery.

Vessels and objects in endless variety have been made by the Venetians, such as ewers, basins, drinking-glasses, bottles, standing cups, bowls, goblets, large and small candlesticks, beads, and mirrors, and were exported in great quantities to all parts by the Venetian galleys.

Bead making at Venice was a separate trade, and was one of great importance in the sixteenth and two following centuries. The makers of the small beads were called the “Margariteri,” and those who made the large beads were known as the “Perlai.” The beads were made from small sections broken or cut off from rods or tubes of glass and placed in an iron pot that was made to rotate, so that the motion prevented the beads from adhering to each other, and at the same time formulated their spherical shape.

Mirrors were made by the ancients of polished metal and from slabs of black obsidian—a kind of natural glass. In mediæval times they were made of clear glass behind which was placed a sheet of lead foil. Glass mirrors were made in Venice from the year 1507, when methods had been discovered of polishing the glass and of applying the “foglia,” or layer of metal leaf, to the back. After this date the making of mirrors soon developed into great importance, and the “Specchiai,” or mirror makers, had their own corporation. Like the other glass wares of Venetian manufacture, the mirrors were exported to all parts of Europe.

Some good examples of sixteenth-century mirrors and mirror-frames in glass cut into ornamental shapes, with bevelled edges and engraved, are preserved in our museums and in old houses.

Glass painting for windows was known and practised in Venice as early as the fourteenth century. The very early Italian stained glass used in windows is said to have been executed for Leo III. in 795.

Besides the painted or stained glass used in church windows during the Middle Ages throughout Italy, there were glass manufactories in Rome, Verona, Milan, and Florence for the production of similar wares as those of Venice.

In France and Spain glass making was carried on at various places from the days of the Romans; antique fragments of glass have been dug up in Normandy and in Poitou. In the latter province glass making flourished from a very early date up to the fifteenth century. It was revived in 1572 by the Venetian Fabriano Salviati, who came to Poitou and set up a glass workshop. At Paris, Rouen, Normandy, and in Lorraine glass was made prior to the sixteenth century. The Normandy glass was of a coarse kind, made chiefly for windows and common utensils, but many of the Venetian varieties were made at the other places named.

Some Venetian glass makers came to Paris in 1665, when an establishment was formed for the making of mirrors, and about the same time another factory was set up at Four-la-Ville; these two factories were united by the French Minister Colbert, and were under the patronage of the king. We find that soon afterwards, and especially in the Louis-Quinze period, large panels and wall spaces were filled with glass mirrors as interior decorations.

Fig. 303.—Spanish Glass; Sixteenth Century. (S.K.M.)

Glass was made in Spain in the Ibero-Roman period, as the remains of glass vessels and necklaces have been found in tombs, and the ruins of Roman furnaces have been found in the valleys of the Pyrenees. It is supposed that the art was carried on under the Gothic kings of Spain, and also by the Moors in the thirteenth century, who brought with them glass workers as well as some of the wares of the East. Much of the glass made in Spain subsequent to this date is in imitation of the shapes of Arabian pottery, and this is still the case in much of the modern Spanish glass. Spanish glass of the Renaissance was similar in form and in material to the Venetian work of the same period, and during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the work was in imitation more or less of the contemporary Dutch and Flemish glass (Fig. 303).

In Holland, glassware seems to have been made by Murano artificers, who from time to time settled in that country and brought the secrets of their trade with them. The objects made were naturally imitations of the Venetian glass, and many of the Dutch drinking-glasses were very graceful in design.

In Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, and throughout the Low Countries generally Venetian glass had been imported in great quantities in the time of and prior to the seventeenth century, and it is difficult to say how much of the old glass found at those places is Dutch, Flemish, or Venetian.

Engraving on glass was much practised in Holland, and many Dutch goblets have well executed portraits of kings, queens, and other persons.

Glass making has been practised in Germany, like in most European countries, from the days of the Romans downwards, especially in the Rhenish Provinces, but German examples dating from the Middle Ages are very rare.

Fig. 304.—German Glasses. (S.K.M.)

There is documentary evidence which proves that glass was made at Mainz as early as the beginning of the eighth century.

The earliest example of German glass in this country is a wiederkom, or cylindrical drinking-vessel, which bears the date of 1571, but an older one, of the date of 1553, is preserved in the Künstkammer at Berlin.

A favourite decoration on the German Wiederkoms is the arms of the emperor or electors, those of the different states of the empire, and of private owners (Fig. 304).

The colour of this kind of glass is usually green and the decorations are enamelled or painted in grisaille; as a rule the German cups and wine glasses of the seventeenth century are richly decorated (Fig. 305). In the German wine-glasses known as “flügelgläser[flügelgläser]” is seen an imitation of the Venetian “winged glasses” (Fig. 301).

Fig. 305.—Decorated German Vases; Seventeenth Century. (S.K.M.)

Bohemian glass of the seventeenth century is noted for its clearness and good quality, and illustrates the advancement made in the art of engraving on glass. The engraved work was done with a diamond point as in etching, with the lapidary’s wheel, and by means of biting the glass with fluoric acid; the latter method is said to have been discovered by Henry Schwanhard of Nüremberg in 1670. John Schäper was a very clever glass engraver and decorator of this period.

A beautiful kind of German glass is known as Kunckel’s ruby glass, the originator of which was the director of the Potsdam glass works, where he produced this variety about 1680.

Many relics of glass vessels and beads have been found in Roman tombs, and in various parts of England, of a greenish or blue colour. These may have been imported or may have been made in England, but there is no certain evidence of this. Glass vessels for drinking purposes have been found which are believed to have belonged to the Anglo-Saxon period (Fig. 306).

The material of these is thin, the colour is generally of a pale straw tint, and strips of thickened glass ornament the outside, arranged in the nature of parallel lines, or wound spirally to produce a kind of network decoration.

Fig. 306.—Anglo-Saxon Drinking Cup. (S.K.M.)

Venetian glass found its way to England in the sixteenth century; in the inventories of Henry VIII. (1529) and of Robert, Earl of Leicester (1588), large quantities of Venetian glasses are mentioned as belonging to the above.

Some Muranese glass workers were engaged at this time (1550) in the service of the King of England. The name of an Italian—Jacob Vessaline—is mentioned as a glass maker who worked at Crutched Friars in the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign (1557), and in the year 1589 there were supposed to be fifteen glass houses in England.

Sir Robert Mansel was a prominent glass maker of the seventeenth century; he obtained patents in the year 1616 for the making of window glass and all kinds of vessels, and from the remains of glass objects that were found on the site of Princes Hall, in Broad Street, London, it is believed that his works were on that spot.

Mansel employed Italian workmen in the first instance, and it appears that prior to 1623 he had set up works in Milford Haven, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, in Scotland, and other places. The Newcastle furnaces were the most successful, the others being practically failures. Mr. Nesbitt thinks that the success of the Newcastle-on-Tyne works was due to the new system of flint-glass making, which must be credited as an English invention.

Flint or crystal glass is made of a mixture of silicate of potash and lead. It was known but imperfectly made by the Romans in their clear glass variety, which contained a small portion of lead. In the Middle Ages the glass which contained lead was called “Jewish glass,” and was generally used for painting on, as it was more fusible than other varieties which did not contain lead. But all authorities agree that the English invented a new product in their flint glass, which was made after many experiments at Lambeth in 1673, as “clear, ponderous, and thick as crystal.”

Mr. Nesbitt infers that it was the use of coal in the furnaces instead of wood that led to the development of the process. When using coal the melting-pots had to be covered in the furnace, which lessened the heating powers and thus made the fusing more difficult. To put more alkali in the mixture would have helped it to fuse at a much lower heat, but it would have injured the colour and quality of the glass, so lead was added in certain proportions, which gave the requisite clearness and strength.

All kinds of glass vessels and plate glass for carriage windows were made at Lambeth, under the management or patronage of the Duke of Buckingham.

Fig. 307.—Stained Glass; Fifteenth Century.

Though there are no records of glass making in Ireland of a very early date, the glass beads and glass bosses which decorate the objects of Irish art, such as the crosses, croziers, brooches, book-covers, and the celebrated Ardagh Chalice, prove that the art was known in Ireland at least in the ninth century, if not earlier. Mention has also been made in old writings of this period of glass vessels for use in Irish churches.

Fig. 308.—Window Glass; English, Fifteenth Century.

Painted or stained window glass is the glory of our Mediæval churches. The earliest coloured windows were doubtless made from mosaic-like arrangements of different bits of coloured glass. The mosaic window led to the representation of pictorial subjects in stained glass, the latter being formed of pieces of self-coloured glass, or that kind having each piece stained in one colour throughout, cut in the requisite shapes, and fastened together by an arrangement of lead lines which form the main lines of the design; to help out the drawing and expression the stained glass is shaded in hatchings, stippling, and bold lines, usually in a brown colour. Painted glass, as distinguished from stained glass, is that which is painted on clear or tinted grounds with various enamel colours made from metallic oxides. After the painting is finished the piece of glass is fired, and the enamel colours become fused with the glass surface, and really become part of the glass itself. More finish, a wider range of colouring, greater detail, and generally a more pictorial effect is produced by the artist being able to use freely the enamel colours; but a corresponding loss of depth and brilliancy of colour and of bold decorative effect which belonged to older examples of stained glass must be set against any advantages the painted variety may possess from its pictorial point of view.

The earliest instance in the use of stained glass for church window’s is supposed to have been in those that were given by Count Arnold to the Abbey of Tegernsee in Bavaria in the year 999. The thirteenth and fourteenth century were the finest periods for the stained-glass windows of the Gothic cathedrals both in England and on the Continent. About the middle of the sixteenth century enamel colours began to be used, and, as before observed, the designs showed a striving after pictorial effects.

Fig. 309.—Chinese Glass Bowl. (S.K.M.)

The revival of classic art in the Renaissance period has also a great deal to do with this change in the style and method of execution in painted glass, and we find that the greatest painters—but not always the greatest decorators-of the period supplied cartoons and designs for this class of work.

Glass making has been known in China and Japan from very early times, but it appears to be difficult to obtain anything like authentic information as to its history from our present imperfect knowledge or acquaintance with the native records.

There are stories of ancient Chinese glass vessels that are said to have been seen by the French missionaries of the last century, one of which vessels was so large that “a mule could have been put into it,” and that the Chinese made a kind of glass called “lieou-li” that was sufficiently elastic as to bend easily.

The vitreous enamels of the Chinese were of course used as glazes on their porcelain wares and pottery, but it seems that formerly they only made glass objects in the imitation of precious stones, gems, and in their enamels. Chinese glass is often made to simulate rock crystal and jade carvings; their glass snuff-boxes and other small objects are usually well coloured, and are decorated with relief work of ornament, landscapes or figure subjects, the objects generally being of a massive character (Fig. 309).

CHAPTER IX.
THE DECORATION OF BOOKS.

Books may be illustrated in a more or less pictorial manner without any particular regard to the decoration of the page, or with due regard to its ornamentation. In the latter case the designer of the decoration will be the illustrator and decorator in one.

The great majority of modern illustrated books are not decorated in the true sense of the word, but have their illustrations inserted as pictures, or scraps of pictures, without borders or frames, and with little or no relation to the distribution of the printed matter or to the boundary lines of the page. In this respect the modern practice is different from that observed in the Mediæval and Renaissance book illustration, for in the two periods named, when a purely literal or pictorial scene was inserted, it had usually borders like mouldings, or borders of rich decoration, or sometimes bands and lines only, which separated the picture from the printed or written text, and harmonized with any other decoration that might be on the page. Thus an artistic unity was usually preserved in the book decoration of earlier times, which, generally speaking, is the exception in the present day, and not the rule.

The modern practice was brought about by the invention of copper-plate engraving—about 1477—when the copper-plate illustration became, in a great measure, the substitute for wood-engraved blocks of a former period. The plates were usually engraved with copies of pictures, and the book decorator was superseded by the painter; the art and practice of the former declined, while the work of the latter became fashionable, and has remained so ever since.

Photography has been a considerable aid to the pictorial side of book illustration, and has, on the other hand, been a great help to designers of decorative illustration, for by the use of photography the designer is enabled to have the work of his hand reproduced in facsimile, as in the process block method, which has been such a powerful rival and competitor to all kinds of engraving that it has now almost crushed them out of existence.

Before the invention of printing books were very scarce, as they were written in manuscript, and were mostly of a devotional character, made for the use of the clergy and others in monastic establishments or religious houses.

The writers and decorators of these missals or illuminated books were chiefly the brothers or monks of the several religious orders.

Some of the earliest and best decorated books are those belonging to the Irish Celtic art of the seventh and eighth centuries. The remarkable designs of illuminated initials and capitals, and the intricate geometric patterns, spirals, and involved interlacings of many varieties, all executed with astonishing skill, were not excelled or equalled by the scribes and designers of similar work in England or on the Continent.

Foremost in importance among the many remaining monuments of Irish art in book decoration is the celebrated “Book of Kells,” now preserved in Trinity College, Dublin. It was formerly supposed to have been brought to the Columban Monastery of Kells, or Kenlis, the ancient Cennanas, by St. Columba, the founder of that Christian house, whose death is said to have taken place in the year 597; but this is likely to be only tradition, for it would appear, according to some later authorities, that the character of the lettering and the style of the ornamentation fixes the date of its execution about the end of the seventh century.

Although the native Irish phase of Celtic art possesses many characteristics of its own, it is a development in some degree of the more Eastern Romanesque ornament, and symbolic Byzantine, or even the more primitive Greek. It is also mixed with a few geometric forms and symbols that had existed in Ireland before the introduction of Christianity in the fifth century.

In the “Book of Kells,” for instance, there are several illustrations which show in some parts a Greek influence, and in one page the Greek monogram of Christ appears.

The initial letters in square or rectilineal capitals usually occupy large portions of the illuminated page, and are often embedded in rectangular panels with borders, the latter being filled with elaborate interlacings and spirals, &c. (Fig. 310).

The smaller text used by the Irish scribes was founded on the round or uncial Roman variety of lettering, but in the Irish variety there is a distinct improvement on the Roman in its beautiful and restrained quality of artistic simplicity, combined with its perfect legibility. In some Irish manuscripts an angular cursive or running hand was also used.

An illustration given at Fig. 311 of the frontispiece from the “Epistle of Jerome,” in the Irish missal known as the “Book of Durrow,” is a fine example of Celtic ornamentation. This and the previous illustration are from Miss M. Stokes’ handbook on “Early Christian Art in Ireland.”

Fig 310.—Portion of Illuminated Monogram; Book of Kells. (S.)

The influence and art work of the Irish scribes and missal decorators in England and on the Continent has been much greater than was formerly believed. Missionaries were sent to England, Scotland, and to the Continent, from the great monastic establishments in Ireland during the period from the seventh to the eleventh centuries, and carried with them “Gospels,” “Psalters,” and other missals, besides making many other religious books for the use of the monasteries they had founded in foreign countries. These Irish scribes also taught their art of book illumination to the monks who lived at such places where they set up their missions, or where they had become recluses in the foreign monasteries already established. This accounts for the number of Irish manuscripts that have been found in such monastic houses as that of St. Gall in Switzerland, Bobio in Piedmont, at Mentz (Mayence), at Ratisbon in Bavaria, at Honau on the Rhine, and at many other places on the Continent. The style of art in all the manuscripts found at these places, though introduced at the inception of Christianity into Ireland from Italy through Gaul, had died out in the latter countries during the fourth and fifth centuries, and was re-introduced, as we have seen, under a modified phase into the Continent by the Irish missionary scribes.

Fig. 311.—From the Epistle of Jerome; “Book of Durrow.” (S.)

The majority of the Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, if not written by Irish scribes in England, were either decorated or copied closely from the work of the latter. This is supported by some written testimony, but the ornamentation of the pages themselves are distinctly of Irish design.

A common feature in the illuminated pages of the books of the Middle Ages was the dividing of the pages into four compartments with ornamental borders, and each compartment holding the figure of a saint or symbols of the Evangelists, or having a miniature on the top half of the page and two small columns of text below.

Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, with classical treatment of the figure designs, may be seen in the King’s Library at the British Museum. The figures have the attenuated Byzantine character, with the linear treatment of the draperies, and with the long lobe-like forms which strongly mark the intended position of the limbs under the drapery; while others show the influence of the early Christian paintings of the catacombs at Rome and Naples.

The “Charter” of the foundation of Newminster at Winchester (966) and several “Gospels” in Latin of the eleventh century in the British Museum, are examples of the best kind of Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscripts.

“Psalteries,” “Gospels,” and botanical works known as “Herbals” were among the principal kinds of illustrated books, which were executed in considerable numbers during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The text in these books was usually in solid columns, neatly written in a kind of half-uncial letter in Latin, with large initials and surrounded by broad borders, having little scrolls and trefoil leaves or flowers in which four or six miniatures were placed at intervals. Some pages had the upper half or more occupied by a miniature and had less text, but nearly always there were the accompanying delicate borders designed with great spirit and freedom, and consisting of ornament made up of leaves, flowers, fruit, stems, lines, and spirals, executed on the vellum ground in bright colours and burnished gold.

A characteristic of some of the missals of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was the calendar pages at the beginning of the book. The pages which contained the calendar had also, in some cases, miniatures in the borders representing the seasons.

The Bedford Missal (1442), in the British Museum, is a good example of the best French book decoration of that period. It contains a calendar, and was the work of a French artist, though executed in England.

Towards the end of the fifteenth century the miniature began to assume more importance and to occupy the whole of the page. The borders had become more realistic in treatment; foliage, flowers, and insects were rendered almost naturally on gold or coloured grounds, with cast shadows, so as to give the utmost relief.

This treatment was not an improvement on the former flat Gothic style, as it tended to lead to shadowy and meretricious work.

Two of the very finest books of this period are the “Romance of the Rose,” in the British Museum, and the Grimani “Breviary” in St. Mark’s, Venice. In the latter magnificent book some of the miniatures are ascribed to the Flemish artist Memling.

The miniatures of the splendid choir books of Siena Cathedral are the masterly designs of Girolamo da Cremona and Liberale da Verona, who were famous at this kind of work. The quantity, variety, and purely Italian character of the decoration of these books would almost be sufficient to form a school of Renaissance art in itself.

With the invention of printing a great change came about in the production of decorated books; but it is curious to note that, for a long time after, in order to produce a book it was thought necessary by the means of woodcuts and type to imitate the illuminated missals of the former times.

A good illustration of this may be seen in the woodcut blocks from the recently discovered Sarum Missal (Figs. 312, 313). This very important acquisition to the list of Caxton’s works was found in 1893, in Lord Newton’s library at Lyme Hall, Cheshire, and is one of the works which Caxton sent to be printed in France. It contains some additions to the text in Caxton’s handwriting and has an impression of his peculiar mark at the end of the book.

The illustrations have been printed from wood blocks, and coloured by hand afterwards, according to the practice which obtained at the latter end of the fifteenth century.

Another interesting survival of the practice of placing a cross at the bottom of the page, on which was represented the crucifixion, is seen underneath the latter illustration (Fig. 313) in the Lyme Missal. In the earlier illuminated missals this device was resorted to in order to keep the picture of the crucifixion from being damaged by the frequent kissing of the cross; and so a small cross was placed at the bottom of the picture to enable the piously inclined to still perform this act of piety without damage to the book.

The custom of engraving blocks for book illustration in outline, to be filled in afterwards in colour, led the way to line engraving on wood, where the pure line work was left uncoloured, and soon after became a style by itself, which ultimately, as the art of black and white, was sought after and prized for its own sake.

The invention of printing from type may be traced from the woodcuts, as we have remarked above, some of the earliest of which were those cut for playing cards at the beginning of the fifteenth century.

Fig. 312.—Page from the Caxton “Lyme Missal.”

The invention was soon after applied to the production of the xylographic or block-printed books, which were printed in colour from the block. The colour was spread on the block, a sheet of paper was placed on the top, and then rubbed over by the hand to get the impression. The early block-books printed in this way had more pictorial or decorative work in their pages than text or literary matter, and therefore appealed more directly to the great uneducated masses of the people of the times for whom they were compiled. By means of the block printing, many proofs could also be taken to supply the increasing demand for general knowledge which was springing up everywhere in the fifteenth century. Letters, whole words, and legends were now also cut for the printing of literary matter in the block-books. Book blocks were cut in Germany, Holland, and Flanders; the period of their production was from the year 1420 to 1510.

The invention of printing by movable type has been ascribed to various people, but it is now pretty certain that the one name most entitled to this honour is that of John Gutenberg, a native of Mentz (Mainz), who set up a printing establishment in that city in the year 1455, and who worked in connection with Fust, another German printer. The invention, therefore, may date about 1450.

It was about 1455 that the Mazarin Bible was issued from the press of Fust and Gutenberg at Mentz. Lord Ashburnham’s copy of the Mazarin Bible, printed on vellum, has been sold this year (1897) for the sum of £4,000.

Peter Schœffer was in partnership some years later with Fust, and in the year 1457 they issued the famous Mentz Psalter (now in the British Museum), the first book printed in different colours from the same block, and the first printed book with a date. This book is a triumph of technical skill, and is unique in its beauty among printed books of the earliest period.

Fig. 313.—Page with the Crucifixion from the Caxton “Lyme Missal.”

There are few, if any, of the early printed books that cannot lay a great claim to artistic merit, but this would hardly have been possible if the designers of the type and ornament for the decoration of the pages, at the advent of printing, had not had before their eyes the splendid models left them by the caligraphers and illuminators of the preceding centuries.

It will be convenient here to say a few words concerning early English printing, which is associated with the name of its great founder, William Caxton (1423-1491). He was a merchant and a diplomatist, but a man of strong literary tastes. He learned the art of printing from Colard Mansion, at Bruges, where he had set up as a merchant; but leaving his business, he entered the household of the Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV., where he was engaged in literary pursuits, and for her he made a translation of Le Fevre’s “Recueil des Histoires de Troyes.” It was in order to multiply copies of this work that he learned the art of printing, and it is said that this was the first English book ever printed, which was probably printed by Mansion at Bruges, under the literary direction of Caxton, in the year 1476.

Caxton came back to England in 1477, and set up a printing press at Westminster, from which he issued a great many books during the last fourteen years of his life. His first book printed at Westminster was a work called “Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers,” which is known to be the first English book printed in England. It is now shown in Case VIII., King’s Library, in the British Museum. Among Caxton’s other books may be mentioned several editions of the poets Chaucer, Lydgate, and Gower, Malory’s “Morte d’Arthur,” &c. He evidently sent books of his own composition to be printed on the Continent, as witness the Sarum Missal before mentioned.

The early printed books did not have title-pages. The slow development of this feature after the invention of printing is accounted for by the reason that in this respect, as in others, the first printed books were modelled in imitation of the illuminated missals, and it was not deemed necessary in the mediæval books and manuscripts to have a title-page, the scribe of the olden time merely recording in a note or label fastened to the end of the volume the name and description of his work; so this habit was continued for a long time by the early printers. This note or ending was called a Colophon.

Title-pages began to come into use about 1490, but it was not until about forty years later that they became general.

Printers’ devices, which were generally of an heraldic character, were commonly seen on the title-pages, some of which were very elaborate and finely designed. The famous printing house of Aldus at Venice had a device of an anchor with a dolphin twined around it, and the motto “Propera tarde,” or “Festina lente” (hasten slowly). It was from the printing press of Aldus, in 1499, that the celebrated book called Poliphili Hypnerotomachia, “The Dream of Poliphilus,” was issued. It is a finely illustrated book, consisting of classical compositions of figures and processions, many architectural designs, ornamental letters, emblems, and devices, all of which are executed in outline and printed from wood blocks.

The illustrations have a fine quality of line, somewhat in the spirit and style of Mantegna’s processional designs, or like those great woodcuts in the “Triumph of Maximilian” by Hans Burgmair and Albert Dürer; they are supposed—without, however, any definite proof—to be the work of Gentile or Giovanni Bellini. The book is a romance written and illustrated in the spirit of classical antiquity that so deeply coloured the art and literature of the early Renaissance epoch. A reproduction of the illustrations of this book in photo-lithography by Mr. W. Griggs, with notes by Dr. Appell, was issued by the Science and Art Department in 1888.

Fig. 314.—Illustration from Woodcut of Dante’s “Inferno;” Fifteenth Century.

Somewhat in the style of “The Dream of Poliphilus” is the illustration (Fig. 314) from an edition of Dante’s “Inferno” of the same period.

A reduced specimen of the flat treatment of a Renaissance border, from a woodcut which appeared in an edition of “Herodotus” printed at Venice in 1470, is shown as the Frontispiece of this volume. This rich and delicate design is extremely effective in white on a black ground, and is artistically appropriate to the decoration of the page, much more so than the later French and German work in borders and title-pages, which was usually of an extremely heavy character.

Shaded designs of an architectural kind, such as friezes, columns, bases, and pediments, with corpulent figure decoration and heavy mouldings, were compositions which in the latter end of the sixteenth and during the seventeenth centuries took the place of the earlier light arabesque scroll-work of the Italian school, which revelled in the beauty of purer outline and in flat treatment of black and white.

Jean Goujon, Jean Cousin, Virgil Solis, Ducerceau, Stimmer, Jost Amman, and others, though versatile and vigorous to the highest degree, and clever French and German draughtsmen of the sixteenth century, their work in book decoration was more like designs for stone carving and sculpture than legitimate decoration for books. At the end of the century, however, a more correct appreciation of book-cover decoration was manifested. This was due to the happy influence of Arabian design when mixed with the prevailing Renaissance forms. The Oriental craftsmen who came to Italy, and the great commerce of Venice and Europe generally with the East, served to colour in a marked degree the design of the ornamental arts, and nowhere do we see the purely Arabian strap-work and peculiar Saracen leafage used to such advantage as in the tooled and stamped book-cover designs of this period. The Henri Deux book-cover design (Fig. 315) is Arabian in its details, but Renaissance in its general arrangement. It might have been designed by Ducerceau, but perhaps more likely by Solomon Bernard of Lyons—known as “Le Petit Bernard”—who was a prolific designer of small pictures for wood-engraved book illustrations. He died at Lyons in 1570.

Fig. 315.—Cover of a Rook. Henri-Deux Style; Sixteenth Century.

Both of these designers, as well as another famous designer of book decoration, Geoffry Tory, were very partial to the use of strap-work and Arab foliation. The latter artist was also a scholar and author, and produced many fine designs for book-covers. Fig. 316 is a very delicate and rich design for the cover of a “Book of the Hours,” by Tory, and is a good example of the Franco-Renaissance of the sixteenth century.

Jean Grolier, Viscount d’Aguisy, was one of the earliest and greatest bibliophiles of France. Though of Italian origin he adopted France as his country, and was Treasurer-General of France when he died, in 1565, at the age of eighty-six. He was appointed ambassador to Clement VII. in the year 1534, and at this time had begun to collect valuable books, that had been chiefly printed in Venice and at Basle. These books were generally unbound copies, but were printed with great care on beautiful paper. On his return to France he employed Geoffry Tory and other designers as well as the best craftsmen in bookbinding to decorate and clothe his precious works. The illustrations we have given are such as are usually found on the Grolier bindings, which nearly always consist of designs composed of strap-work or interlacings and delicate tracery, clothed with Arabian foliage, worked on prepared costly leathers in various colours, and often heightened with gold.

Grolier’s bindings usually bore in addition to the title of the book the inscription “Jo Grolierii Et Amicorum,” indicating that they belonged to Grolier and his friends, at the same time adding a testimony to the unselfish spirit of the great book-lover.

Fig. 316.—Cover for a “Book of the Hours,” designed by Geoffry Tory; French, Sixteenth Century.

The strap-work and Oriental foliage designs, which had developed so much in France, went even further in Germany, not only in bookbinding decoration, but in gold and silversmiths’ work, and in architecture—as we have noticed before in this volume—and nearly all the German, Flemish, and Dutch artists of the sixteenth and following century, who designed for book decoration, adopted the above features in their ornament. Great masters like Albert Dürer, Holbein the younger, Lucas Cranach, and Hans Burgmair, and the “little masters”—Jost Amman, Hans Sebald Beham, Aldegrever, Virgil Solis, Jerome Bang, Peter Flötner of Liége, the Collærts and Janssens of Antwerp, and Lucas Kilian of Augsburg—were the principal designers and engravers for book decoration and illustrations, in which work they were engaged among their varied and prolific labours in other branches of decorative art.

During the seventeenth century the power of design was growing rapidly weaker, the ornament became coarser in feeling and imitated the cumbersome and heavy traditions of classical art. Headpieces, tailpieces, and printers’ devices or marks were now more in fashion, rather than the consideration of the design of the page as a whole decorative scheme.

Title-pages with heavy architectural pretensions and pictorial views began to be very common at the end of the century and throughout the eighteenth century.

The pictorial illustration in black and white was due to the development of copper-plate first, and steel engraving afterwards, as new methods for book illustration. These processes were developed very much in Italy and France at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and in England their use in book illustration might be said to extend from about the middle of the eighteenth to the middle of the present century. This period embraced that of the publication of a type of English books of essays, poems, and short stories, known as Anniversaries, Amulets, Annuals, Keepsakes, Souvenirs, &c. These books were filled with beautifully executed line engravings of landscapes and figure subjects, and most of them were of the highest order of technical skill. The period of their existence was from 1780 to 1830.

Book decoration had become more and more pictorial and less decorative when the method employed was line engraving, for, generally speaking, pictures in oil or water-colour were copied with great fidelity and skill by the engraver for use in book illustration, and thus through the agency of the burin or engraver’s tool the painter supplanted the book decorator.

Many of the line engravings in the books of the above period show a mixture, on the same plate, of pure line engraving and etching, the latter being a process in which the lines of the design are scratched into the metal plate, which had been previously covered with a wax preparation, and the lines thus exposed are bitten deeper by an acid solution into which the plate is immersed.

Three artists of great talents—Prout, Stothard, and Turner—supplied designs and water-colour drawings of landscapes, figures, and decorative compositions, that were engraved as book illustrations. The illustrations, though on a small scale, to Rogers’s “Poems,” were very beautifully engraved by William Finden, after the designs of Stothard, who made the figure compositions, and of Turner, who did the landscapes. Finden was the great interpreter of Stothard’s figure designs, but was equally successful in his engraving of Turner’s landscapes.

Stothard has designed many illustrations for books which are characterized by a fine sense of decorative value; his figures were, as a rule, clothed in light classical costumes, and were graceful in pose and in drawing. The best engravers of the day, such as Finden, Heath, Allen, Fox, Goodyear, Robinson, and Humphreys, were engaged for the publishers in translating his designs for book illustration.

Steel-engraved frontispieces to books on science, history, travels, architecture, and philosophy had become very common in the eighteenth century. The designs of these were more or less of a heavy classical type of architectural framing and allegorical figures, sometimes enclosing portraits or landscape views. Hogarth’s engraved designs and the work of Flaxman maybe said to be at the opposite poles of art; the dramatic realism of the former is in strong opposition to the classic idealism of the latter. The works of both have been used as book illustrations, but neither of them can be called book decorators, their engraved works being produced as plates, or as a series of pictures, and the text of the books written merely in explanation of the plates.

The poet and highly imaginative artist, William Blake, in his designs for his “Songs of Innocence” (1789), and in his “Book of Job,” reverts to the old missal-painters’ manner of embodying together the text, ornament, and miniatures, in one decorative scheme of unity, in the artistic treatment of the page. Blake engraved his own designs, and printed them off in black and white, or sometimes in colour.

During the later years in which steel engravings for books were in fashion, the revived art of wood-engraving was making a slow headway towards recognition and favour in England, and its complete revival was owing to the persistent efforts and genius of Thomas Bewick (1753-1828). Bewick was not only a wood-engraver and a craftsman of the highest order, but was an artist gifted with a fine feeling for humour and pathos, and many of his small compositions are characterized by a good deal of pictorial effect. His best works, from a technical point of view, are his illustrations of natural history, the finest of which are the illustrations in his book, the “History of British Birds,” which show Bewick at his best in the rendering of bird form and feather texture. He also designed and executed many dainty little compositions of landscapes with figures and animals as tailpieces.

The school of Bewick, formed of his pupils and others, served to keep alive the art of wood-engraving until the revival was assured, for Bewick had a difficult task to get the public to appreciate his work during his lifetime.

The names of his principal pupils were Luke Clennel, who was the most celebrated, and who was also a good water-colour painter; Charlton Nesbitt, Robert Johnson, and William Harvey.

A self-educated engraver of some note was Robert Branston, of Lynn, Norfolk (1778-1827).

John Thompson was a pupil of Branston, who excelled his master, and was the best engraver of his time in England.

A great name among English wood-engravers is that of William J. Linton, who has done more by his work and pen to advance the art than any one. His best work was executed about the middle of this century, particularly in the engravings of Rossetti’s designs for Tennyson’s poems (1857-59). He is also known as a writer and designer of considerable power.

A pupil of his—Mr. Walter Crane—whose work is so well known and admired in the present day, has designed some fine decorative work for book illustration. His children’s books are good examples of colour and design, but perhaps his own poem, “The Sirens Three,” where he has designed and executed the lettering and beautiful decoration, best fulfils the conditions of what a decorated page ought to be, and maybe ranked as one of his greatest efforts in book decoration.

The late Randolph Caldecott, whose characteristic humour appears in every line of his work, was another great designer of children’s books. His colouring is very harmonious and refined, and though his work is mostly of a pictorial character, yet in his larger pages he displays a true feeling for the decoration of the page.

Children’s illustrated books of fairy tales have multiplied very much of late years, and in many of them is seen some of the old decorative feeling, where the text and illustrations are considered in an artistic relation to each other. This will also be noticed in many illustrations to poems which often appear in the monthly magazines of the present day.

On the other hand, picture illustrations and scrappy designs of the vignette order are very common.

These are generally inserted, without any apparent order, on any part of the page, and the type matter filled into the vacant spaces. This picture-screen method of book, newspaper, and magazine illustration has no doubt been developed by our recent acquaintance and infection with Japanese art, which, though highly artistic and decorative in many senses, is wanting in balance of mass, and is only occasionally right in arrangement of line. Japanese decoration as such is generally charming, but when the Western designer copies the Japanese ideas without the style and methods of execution, the result may have novelty to recommend it, but otherwise it is a failure.

It is hardly necessary to say that the reign of wood-engraving is almost now at an end as far as book illustration is concerned, and, like steel engraving, has nearly become an art of the past, owing to the great advance made in recent years in the many methods of black and white reproduction, which is mainly due to the powerful help and agency of photography.

END.

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PRINTED BY J. S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, CITY ROAD, LONDON.

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CHAPMAN & HALL’S

ART PUBLICATIONS.

PLANTS AND THEIR APPLICATION TO ORNAMENT. Edited by Eugene Grasset. This magnificent work contains 72 Coloured Plates, consisting of 24 Floral Designs, with two samples of each, showing their ornamental application. In Portfolio, net, £5 5s.

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AN ILLUSTRATED RECORD OF THE RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION HELD AT SOUTH KENSINGTON, 1896. Compiled and Edited by John Fisher, Head Master, Kensington School of Science and Art, Berkeley Square, Bristol. With about 156 full-page Illustrations. 21s. net.

HISTORIC ORNAMENT: A Treatise on Decorative Art and Architectural Ornament, from Pre-Historic Times to the Present Day. By James Ward, Author of “The Principles of Ornament.” Fully Illustrated. In 2 vols., 7s. 6d each.

HARBUTT’S PLASTIC METHOD, and the Use of Plasticine in the Arts of Writing, Drawing, and Modelling in Educational Work. By William Harbutt. With Illustrations. Crown 4to, 4s.

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MODERN ARCHITECTURE: A book for Architects and the Public. By H. Heathcote Statham, Editor of The Builder, and Author of “Architecture for General Readers,” &c. With numerous Illustrations of Contemporary Buildings. Demy 8vo.

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FIGURE DRAWING AND COMPOSITION. Being a number of Hints for the Student and Designer upon the Treatment of the Human Figure. By R. G. Hatton. With 500 Diagrams. Crown 8vo, 9s.

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ARCHITECTURE FOR GENERAL READERS: to which is added an Historical Sketch of Architecture. By H. Heathcote Statham. With hundreds of Illustrations by the Author. Second Edition, Revised. Demy 8vo, 12s.

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THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF DESIGN. An Advanced Text-Book on Decorative Art. By F. G. Jackson. With 700 Illustrations. Large crown 8vo, 9s.

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THE HORSE. By Cecil Brown. The work is thoroughly practical, and shows the Horse as he really is, not as he is too often represented in conventional art. The work will be invaluable to every artist and to every horse-lover. In Eight Parts, each 2s. 6d.; or in one volume, 21s.

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ELEMENTARY DESIGN: being a Theoretical and Practical Introduction in the Art of Decoration. By R. G. Hatton. With 110 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.

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STUDIES IN PLANT FORM AND DESIGN. By W. Midgley and A. E. V. Lilley. With numerous Illustrations. Second Edition. Demy 8vo, 4s.

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WOOD CARVING. By Jos. Phillips. A Carefully Graduated and Educational Course of Wood Carving, specially adapted for Schools and Technical Classes. With 13 Illustrations, 3s. 6d.; 15 Full-size Shaded Working Drawings, 5s.

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RAPHAEL: HIS LIFE, WORKS, AND TIMES. By Eugene Muntz. A New and Cheap Edition, condensed from the original work. Royal 8vo, 7s. 6d.

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A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK OF DRAWING: For Modern Methods of Reproduction. By Charles G. Harper. With many Illustrations showing comparative results. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d.

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EGYPTIAN ART. By C. Ryan. With 56 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.

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PRINCIPLES OF ORNAMENT. By J. Ward. Edited by G. Aitchison, A.R.A. Fully Illustrated. New and Enlarged Edition. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d.

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DECORATIVE DESIGN. An Elementary Text-Book of Principles and Practice. By F. G. Jackson. Fully Illustrated. Third Edition. Large crown 8vo, 7s. 6d.

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THE DECORATION OF METALS: Chasing, Repoussé, and Saw Piercing. By John Harrison. With 180 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.

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WOOD-CARVING IN THEORY AND PRACTICE, AS APPLIED TO HOME ARTS, with Notes on Design. By F. L. Schauermann. 124 Illustrations. Second Edition. Imp. 8vo, 5s.

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SCIOGRAPHY: or, Parallel and Radial Projection of Shadows. Being a Course of Exercises for the use of Students in Architectural and Engineering Drawing. By R. Pratt. With numerous plates. Oblong 4to, 7s. 6d.

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THE SCULPTOR AND ART STUDENTS’ GUIDE TO THE PROPORTIONS OF THE HUMAN FORM. With measurements in feet and inches of Full-grown Figures of Both Sexes and of Various Ages. By Dr. G. Schadow. Oblong folio, 31s. 6d.

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ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF ORNAMENT. By James Ward. Illustrated. 8vo, 5s.

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HANDBOOK OF PERSPECTIVE. By H. J. James, M.A., Cantab. With 75 Diagrams. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.

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TEXT-BOOK ON SHADES AND SHADOWS, AND PERSPECTIVE. By John E. Hill, Associate Professor of Engineering, Brown University. Twelve folding Plates. 8vo, net, 8s. 6d.

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HINTS TO AMATEURS. A Handbook on Art. By Louise Jopling. With Diagrams. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.

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TEN LECTURES ON ART. By E. J. Poynter, R.A. Large crown 8vo, 9s. New and Enlarged Edition.

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BENT IRONWORK FOR BEGINNERS AND PROFICIENTS. By Amanda Sanders. With 55 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.

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ELEMENTARY DRAWING. A few Suggestions for Students and Teachers. By H. Foster Newey. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.

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A TREATISE ON PRACTICAL PLANE AND SOLID GEOMETRY. Containing Solutions to the Honours Questions set at the Examinations of the Science and Art Department (1887-1896) inclusive. Fully Illustrated. By T. J. Evans, Lecturer in Geometry and Architectural Subjects at the South-West London Polytechnic Institute; and W. W. F. Pullen, Wh.Sc., A.M.I.C.E., Head of the Engineering Department, South-West London Polytechnic Institute. Demy 8vo, 9s.

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THE CHARACTERISTICS OF STYLE: An Introduction to the Study of the History of Ornamental Art. By R. N. Wornum. Ninth Edition. Royal 8vo, 8s.

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PERROT (G.) and CHIPIEZ (C.).—A HISTORY OF ART IN PRIMITIVE GREECE (MYCÆNIAN). With 553 Illustrations and 20 Coloured Plates. 2 vols. Imperial 8vo, 42s.

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——— ——— A HISTORY OF ANCIENT ART IN SARDINIA, JUDÆA, SYRIA, and ASIA MINOR. With 395 Illustrations. 2 vols. Imperial 8vo, 36s.

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——— ——— A HISTORY OF ANCIENT ART IN PHŒNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. With 654 Illustrations. 2 vols. Imperial 8vo, 42s.

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——— ——— A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALDÆA AND ASSYRIA. With 452 Illustrations. 2 vols. Imperial 8vo, 42s.

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——— ——— A HISTORY OF ART IN ANCIENT EGYPT. With 600 Illustrations. 2 vols. Imperial 8vo, 42s.

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FIRST PRINCIPLES OF MECHANICAL AND ENGINEERING DRAWING. A Course of Study adapted to the Self-Instruction of Students and Apprentices of Mechanical Engineering in all its Branches. And for the use of Teachers in Technical and Manual Instruction Schools. By H. Holt-Butterfill, M.E., formerly a Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and Institution of Naval Architects. With upwards of 350 Diagrams in Illustration of the Principles of the subject. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d.

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A TEXT-BOOK OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING. By Wilfrid J. Lineham, M.I.Mech.E., Head of the Engineering Department at the Goldsmiths’ Company’s Institute, New Cross. Second Edition. 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.

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MACHINE CONSTRUCTION AND DRAWING (Elementary and Advanced). A Key to the Examinations of the Science and Art Department. By Henry Adams, M.Inst.C.E., M.Inst.M.E., F.S.I., &c., Professor of Engineering at the City of London College. 2 vols. Crown 8vo 2s. 6d. each.

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ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE PRINCIPAL NATURAL ORDERS OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. By D. Oliver, F.R.S., late Professor of Botany, University College, London. New Edition. 109 Plates, coloured. Royal 8vo. 16s.

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PRACTICAL PLANE AND SOLID GEOMETRY. A Treatise containing Solutions to the Honours Questions set at the Examinations of the Science and Art Department (1887-1896) inclusive. Fully Illustrated. By T. J. Evans and W. W. F. Pullen, Wh.Sc., A.M.I.C.E., South-West London Polytechnic Institute. Demy 8vo. 9s.

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KEY TO EXAMINATIONS OF SCIENCE AND ART DEPARTMENT. Subject III.—Building Construction. By Henry Adams, M.Inst.C.E., M.Inst.M.E., &c., Professor of Engineering at the City of London College. Crown 8vo. 4s.

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PRACTICAL PLANE AND SOLID GEOMETRY. A Key to the Examinations of the Science and Art Department. By Henry Angel, Lecturer on Geometry at the Birkbeck Institute, Woolwich Polytechnic, &c. Gold Medallist. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.

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MECHANICAL ENGINEERS’ POCKET-BOOK. A Reference Book of Rules, Tables, Data, and Formulæ, for the Use of Engineers, Mechanics, and Students. By William Kent, A.M., M.E., Consulting Engineer. 1,100 pages. 12mo, morocco flap. 21s. net.

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CIVIL ENGINEERS’ POCKET-BOOK of Mensuration, Trigonometry, Surveying, Hydraulics, Hydrostatics, Instruments and their adjustments, Strength of Materials, Masonry, Principles of Wooden and Iron Roof and Bridge Trusses, Stone Bridges and Culverts, Trestles, Pillars, Suspension Bridges, Dams, Railroads, Turnouts, Turning Platforms, Water Stations, Cost of Earthwork, Foundations, Retaining-Walls, &c. In addition to which the elucidation of certain important Principles of Construction is made in a more simple manner than heretofore. By J. C. Trautwine, C.E. 12mo, morocco flaps, gilt edges. Seventeenth edition, 47th thousand. Revised and enlarged, with new Illustrations, by J. C. Trautwine, Junr., C.E. 21s. net.

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THE MATERIALS OF CONSTRUCTION. By J. B. Johnson. Large 8vo. 800 pages. 650 Illustrations, 11 Plates, and Complete Index. 25s. net.

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THE MECHANICAL ENGINEERING OF POWER PLANTS. By Professor Frederick R. Hutton, Columbia University. 8vo. 21s. net.

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HIGHER MATHEMATICS: a Text-Book for Classical and Engineering Colleges. Edited by M. Merriman and R. S. Woodward. 8vo. 2ls. net.

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STEAM BOILERS. By Cecil H. Peabody and E. F. Miller, Professor of Marine Engineering and Naval Architecture. 8vo. 17s. net.

DIAGRAMS FOR CLASS TEACHING.

(Adapted to the Requirements of the Science and Art Department.)

THE PRINCIPLES OF MINING. Arranged by E. T. Howard, M.A., F.G.S , and E. W. Small, M.A., B.Sc., F.G.S. These Diagrams have been arranged in accordance with the list given in the Directory of Science and Art (1895). The object has been to supply a really useful selection at a very moderate cost. Twelve sheets, size 30 in. by 40 in. Price 21s. net; on rollers and varnished, £2 2s. net.

TERRESTRIAL AND ASTRONOMICAL PHENOMENA AND OBJECTS. By R. A. Gregory, F.R.A.S., author of “Elementary Physiography,” “The Planet Earth,” &c. These diagrams have been prepared to illustrate Phenomena and Objects which cannot be experimentally demonstrated or easily observed. It is believed that they will not only be of value in Departmental Classes, but also in Elementary Schools where Physical Geography is taught. Twelve sheets, size 30 in. by 40 in. Price 21s. net; on rollers and varnished, £2 2s. net.

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BOTANICAL.

ILLUSTRATING A PRACTICAL METHOD OF TEACHING BOTANY. By Professor Henslow, F.L.S. Nine sheets coloured, 42 in. by 31 in., £2; on rollers and varnished, £3 3s.

MACHINE DETAILS.

SIXTEEN COLOURED DIAGRAMS. By Professor Unwin. 31 in. by 23 in., £2 2s.; on rollers and varnished, £3 14s.

MODELS.

SYLLABUS OF ART EXAMINATIONS.

Minute by Science and Art Department.

MODEL DRAWING,

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Models and Vases prescribed by the Science and Art Department for the use at the above Art Examinations. These Models and Vases have been duly approved by the Authorities, and specially manufactured for Chapman & Hall, Limited.

The Entire Collection consists of—

1. Vase—Bottle.		8. Hexagonal Prism.
2. Vase—Majolica Vase.		9. Triangular Prism.
3. Vase—Large Earthenware Vase.		10. Square Prism.
4. Cube—Large.		11. Square Pyramid.
5. Cube—Small.		12. Skeleton Cube.
6. Cone.		13. Sphere.
7. Cylinder.		14. Ring.

Price in box, complete, £4 net.

Set for Elementary Stage (Subject 3A—First Figure), £2 16s. net.

Set for Advanced Stage (Subject 3A—Second Figure), £1 4s. net.

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CASTS.

A CATALOGUE OF CASTS,

Especially selected for the use of Schools of Art, Art Classes, Technical Schools and Public and Elementary Schools. Price 1s.

This Catalogue contains Illustrations of 423 different Casts, a great number of which are made by Messrs. Chapman & Hall from original and copyright designs, and from exhibits in the South Kensington Museum. The selection and manufacture are under the personal supervision of the Art Master of one of the largest Art Schools of England.

NOTICE.—The above diagrams, models, &c., can be inspected in the Show Room of Messrs. Chapman and Hall’s premises, together with a vast assortment of mechanical and other models, vases, diagrams, and drawing examples. Catalogues post free.

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LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, Ltd.,

Agents to the Science and Art Department.

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Transcriber’s Note

Some inconsistencies in formatting conventions have been corrected, without further mention. Occasionally, diacritical marks are used (or not used) inconsistently as well, and has been made regular to facilitate searches.

The compound word ‘salt-cellar’ is given both with and without the hyphen. They have been retained as printed.

Any errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original. The following issues should be noted, along with the resolutions.

[xiv.16]	Salt-cell[e/a]r, portions of, by Pierre Raymond	Replaced.
[11.f8]	Earthe[r]nware Plaque; Alcora Ware.	Removed.
[83.19]	The glaze gives a slight[l]y uneven surface	Inserted.
[167.4]	plated with gold[.]	Restored.
[272.6]	This celebrated furnitu[t/r]e	Replaced.
[319.18]	for g[e]orgeous colouring	Removed.
[361.33]	there [has] been several attempts	sic: have
[382.4]	known as “flügelgläser”	Removed.