(At Sèvres Museum.)]
VASES.
Designed by Arnold Krog. Crystalline glaze by V. Engelhardt.
New shapes are continually being invented, and a long chain of experiments in the laboratory has resulted in the production of some very remarkable examples of colouring which are always welcome to collectors, who are quick to realize that no two examples can ever be the same. All colours can be handled in this manner. The range is a wide one, and the surprising gradations of tone have a charm undoubtedly their own, and not unworthy to be regarded as representative of some of the most wonderful creations of the modern potter. The metallic oxides in the hands of the twentieth-century chemist become possessed of magical properties and are transformed into tender harmonies vibrating with exquisite tones. Yellows, and blues, and browns merge into mauve or grey, in delightful tenderness, and black and white are included in the colour schemes of which this style is now capable.
Blue Crackled Glaze.—In regard to crackled glazes there is evidence that they are coming more under the governance of the chemist. There is a beautiful deep blue variety produced at Copenhagen, with a network of crackle graduated to a nicety, now swelling, when on the belly of the beaker or vase, and now contracting into minute meshes when on the slender neck. This is completely under mechanical control. As yet blue is the only colour produced in this style.
At the Brussels Exhibition, 1910, the Sèvres factory exhibited some large vases with crystalline glaze evidently under the complete mastery of the potter and chemist. These vases were of a very fine character, and the suggestion arises that at no far distant date the glazes now termed "transmutation" or adventitious will be completely mastered by the latest developments of modern science as applied to pottery, and thus "transmutation" will be a word of the past.
The technique of Copenhagen differs from that of Sèvres or of Berlin. In these latter cases the crystals appear like spots on the surface, whereas in Copenhagen ware the crystals have a more subtle and intimate incorporation with the glaze. They never stand on the surface, and often, as in the mellow brown glaze, they lie beneath and glow in reflected light.