The tall centre-piece (Fig. [734]) is designed on a more ambitious scale. A triton or merman is blowing a conch; a mermaid is wringing and dressing her redundant locks; and a sea-horse dashes through the spray. Between these figures, which thus divide the base into three compartments, are placed three shells of the species hippopus maculata, which form convenient receptacles for bonbons, candied fruit, or other smaller delicacies of the dessert-table. A trumpet-shell is again selected to form the main stem, which is surrounded with aquatic plants; and three paludina shells are so introduced as to form suitable vases for sprays of flowers. The shell-dish, with its beautiful markings and projections, again forms the cap of the tazza.
Fig. 734.—Centre-piece: for the Prince of Wales.
The low compotier (Fig. [735]) are modelled en suite; the idea of the entire service being that of the combination of natural objects, selected for their appropriate shape, and for their beauty of form or of sculpture, with imaginary forms. The shells which are modelled for the dishes are supported by conventional dolphins.
The tazza vase and pedestal (Fig. [736]), on which hangs a wreath of flowers, dependent from rams’ heads, is a fine specimen of Irish art.
Our next engraving (Fig. [737]) is a flower-stand composed of shells supported by dolphins, and is so iridescent as to have almost an unearthly appearance of liquid beauty.
Fig. 735.—Low Compotier: for the Prince of Wales.
“The reproduction of natural forms by Ceramic Art,” says the Art Journal, “is not by any means a novelty. We are familiar with the fish, the reptiles, and the crustacea of Bernard Palissy, with the relieved and coloured foliage of Luca and of Andrea della Robbia. In England we have seen the shells reproduced by the artists of the Plymouth china, and the delicate leaves and flowers of the old Derby ware. The designer of much of the Belleek ware has the merit, so far as we are aware, of being the first artist who has had recourse to the large sub-kingdom of the radiata for his types. The animals that constitute this vast natural group are, for the most part, characterized by a star-shaped or wheel-shaped symmetry; and present a nearer approach to the verticillate structure of plants, than to the bilateral balance of free locomotive animals. For, at all events a portion of their existence, indeed, most of the radiata are fixed to the earth. The five-fold radiation, which is most common among dicotyledonous plants, is the usual division assumed by these zoophytic creatures. From the globular shape of the commonest echinus, or sea-urchin, through the flattened and depressed form of others of the family, the transition is regular and gradual, to the well-known five-fingered star-fish, and to those wonderfully branched and foliated forms which shatter themselves into a thousand fragments when they are brought up by the dredge from deep water and exposed for a moment to the air. Under the name of frutti di mare, these sea-eggs, covered as they are with innumerable pink and white spines, form a favourite portion of the diet of the southern Italians. When the spines, by which the creature moves, are stripped off, the projections and depressions of the testa, or shell, are often marked by great beauty of pattern; and it would have been hardly possible to bring into the service of plastic art a more appropriate group of natural models. Again, in the fantastic and graceful forms of the mermaid, the nereid, the dolphin, and the sea-horse, the Belleek art-designer has attained great excellence of ideality; the graceful modelling is set off, with the happiest effect, by the contrast between the dead, Parian-like surface of the unglazed china, and the sparkling iridescence of the ivory-glazed ground.”
