A Manual of Mending and Repairing; With Diagrams

by Charles Godfrey Leland

A modification of it is as follows:—Cut out several panes, corresponding to the size of the two glass covers, of quite transparent paper or parchment, prepared by rubbing with oil or vaseline, lard, or the like. Paint on these the required modifications of the picture. The advantage of this is, that a great many shades can thus be given in a thinner space, creating an astonishing effect. As this is not at all a mere imitation of stained glass, and as it produces effects not to be found in the latter, it may rank as an art by itself. The chief of these effects is relief, especially shown in the human figure. But the most extraordinary are the variations of chiaroscuro which it affords, by availing himself of which the artist may create or obtain striking suggestions for oil or aquarelle pictures; for these transparencies can be so infinitely and ingeniously varied that no one can fail to derive from them many ideas.

This may be tested by simply preparing any picture, say of a statue, a castle on a rock, or a face. Cut out from sheets of the same size in very transparent paper a series of shadows adapted to it, and adjust them. They may be all in monochrome or one colour, or in many hues. They may range, with proper care, from almost imperceptible shadow to opaque black. By beginning with only two stencils or shaded pictures—for as regards these the artist must be guided by his own skill—and gradually increasing the number, the proper adjustment will soon be found. I advise the beginner in copying to proceed from monochrome to two colours before attempting many. Teachers in aquarelle will find that such copies are—after a certain degree of proficiency shall have been obtained—much superior to those commonly used, as they come nearer to nature.

The most perfect form of this curious art is an improvement which, I believe, is my own invention. This consists of introducing leaves of painted mica between the two glasses. In this way four grades or tones of colour and light and shade can be made in a picture. Mica-leaves can be made into one by using mastic cement. Rub the edges with emery-paper to roughen them.

As I have already intimated, the materials for this work are so cheap and the process so easy, that all which I here assert may be at once verified by the outlay of a few shillings, with a few hours of time. It is, in another form, the same thing as arranging lights around a statue in a dark room, but adapted to all kinds of pictures.

As a Latin poet has declared, “It is an easy thing to add to arts,” when a beginning has once been made (“Inventis facile semper aliquid addere”), so I will add to this a curious discovery in glass made by me in Venice a few years ago. I was being taken by Sir Austin Layard over his celebrated glass-factory. It was he who, with the aid of Sir William Drake, first revived the almost forgotten manufacture of glass in Murano. While standing with him by a furnace watching a workman skilfully forming ornaments in glass, it suddenly occurred to me that the Chinese were said to have possessed in remote times an art, now lost, of making vases or bottles which appeared externally to be quite plain, but on the surface of which, when red wine was poured in, patterns or inscriptions appeared of the same colour. It at once occurred to me that this could be perfectly effected by making a bottle, on the interior of which the ground should be of considerable thickness, say half-an-inch, while the inscription or pattern would be no thicker than ordinary window-glass. Then if the whole exterior were to be lightly ground on a wheel or sandpapered, the difference between ground and pattern would not be perceptible until red wine or some highly coloured fluid were poured in, when the pattern would at once show itself.

Sir Austin Layard was so much struck by the suggestion that he sent at once for his foreman, Signore Castellani, who said that he had heard of such bottles, but always supposed it was a fable. He, however, at once admitted that they could be made as I proposed, but added that the expense would be so great as to render the invention practically useless.

It has, however, since occurred to me that such bottles could be made, and cheaply, as follows:—Take a Florence flask, and divide it into two parts with a diamond, using a saw for the bottom. Then on the sides within place the ground. It could be made of silicate of soda and powdered glass or flint, or even of white wax, hardened with powdered glass. Close the bottle with silicate, and grind the whole.

When any glass has been broken and mended, the fracture still discernible may be thus concealed by grinding the surface, and in many cases by surrounding it with a ring or tube of metal, also by one of silicate, or with an ornament formed with it.

A glass stopper when too large can be easily filed down to fit. Should the neck of the bottle be too narrow, it can also be enlarged by the same process. When the rim of a goblet is fractured, it can be ground down on a grindstone. I have done it with a file.

A pane of glass can be somewhat rudely cut into shape with a pair of strong scissors, under water. In this, as in other things, practice leads to perfection.