SOUTH COURT, SHOWING THE PRINCE CONSORT’S GALLERY.
It is these superb figures, representing the great artists of the past, which constitute the most salient feature of decoration in the museum. In this case (as in so many others in the museum) the scheme—due to the late Mr. Godfrey Sykes—of combining the purposes of general decoration with subjects of special interest in a museum, has been most fortunate: the general effect is noble, the figures interesting as portraits and as representations of costume, the varieties of mosaic in which they are produced being of value for comparison. There are thirty-six flat alcoves—eighteen on each side—and the figures in them are those of the chief artists in ornamentation, with the names of their designers beneath: Phidias (by Poynter); Apelles (Poynter); Nicola Pisano (Leighton); Cimabue (Leighton); Torel, the English goldsmith, d. 1300 (Burchett); William of Wykeham, bishop and architect of Winchester Cathedral, d. 1404 (Burchett); Fra Angelico (Cope); Ghiberti (Wehnert); Donatello (Redgrave); Gozzoli, one of whose Florentine frescoes, containing his own portrait, is in the museum, d. 1478 (E. Armitage); Luca della Robbia, specimens of whose terra-cotta work in the museum show him to have been a man of genius, d. 1481 (Moody); Mantegna (Pickersgill); Giorgione (Prinsep); Giacomo da Ulma, friar at Bologna and painter on glass, d. 1517 (Westlake); Leonardo da Vinci (J. Tenniel); Raphael (G. Sykes); Torrigiano (Yeames); A. Dürer (Thomas); P. Vischer (W. B. Scott); Holbein (Yeames); Giorgio, painter in majolica, d. 1552 (Hart); Michael Angelo (Sykes); Primaticcio, the Italian who made the decorations at Fontainebleau, d. 1570 (O’Neil); Jean Goujon, to whom is attributed the old carving in the Louvre, d. 1572 (Bowler); Titian (Watts); Palissy (Townroe); François du Quesnoy, Flemish ivory carver, d. 1546 (Ward); Inigo Jones (Morgan); Grinling Gibbons (Watson); Wren (Crowe); Hogarth (Crowe); Sir J. Reynolds (Phillips); Mulready (Barwell). The only very modern artist in this list is Mulready, and he is certainly unfortunate, looking as if Mr. Punch’s most cynical artist had been employed to depict him. The late Mr. Owen Jones has been well represented in a mosaic set in the wall near a staircase leading from the Oriental Court decorated by him. Mulready is the only bit of really ugly work in the series, although, of course, the merits of the others are unequal. The artists have evidently given careful archæological study to the costumes of each period, and in some cases—as Prinsep’s Giorgione, Scott’s Vischer, and Pickersgill’s Mantegna—the work is such as the grand old workers around need not be ashamed of. Of great interest, too, are the varieties of material of which the mosaics are composed, concerning which I can only say here that the Italian glass appears to me incomparably superior to the experiments in English ceramic wares.
The shape of this double room, it will be borne in mind, implies four large lunettes, one, that is, at each end of the two large roof-spans. One of these has been already filled by Sir Frederick Leighton, P.R.A., with an admirable allegorical painting representing the “Arts of War.” Here we see workmen forging every variety of armor, shields, weapons, and women buckling them on to knights, as is written in fabliaux of the Round Table. Sir Frederick has put his most graceful drawing and purest colors into this fine work. There is also in the gallery a design for a companion picture of the “Arts of Peace,” wherein the ladies are engaged in the pleasanter work of adorning themselves, and utilizing mirrors, while the men are toiling to provide the sinews for the gentler siege in which their own hearts are liable to capture. These works are scholarly, almost hypercritically exact in archæological details, and when the second is completed the court will be greatly improved.
CHINESE POTTERS AT WORK.—WINDOW IN THE CERAMIC GALLERY.
To Mr. F. W. Moody, one of the most energetic and accomplished teachers at the museum, the institution is indebted for many instructive experiments and designs in the way of decoration. No one should fail to observe the very remarkable exterior wall decoration covering one entire side of the new School of Science, which is a most complete revival of the sgraffito work of the fifteenth century. This experiment by Mr. Moody of the high Renaissance in Italy has been placed on a wall of the building not visible from the streets, but only from the windows of the museum. It is analogous to the niello, which was graven in silver and the lines filled in with carbon, making a black picture on a white ground. (There is a good account of this ornamentation, said to be the origin of all engraving for printed work, in W. B. Scott’s Half-hour Lectures.) Mr. Moody’s experiment is made by filling in the hollows of the cement, presenting a multiplicity of scrolls, symbols, allegorical figures—Natura, Scientia, etc.—and portraits of scientific men. The stairway from which this vast work—covering the wall for four or five stories—can best be seen is another interesting experiment of Mr. Moody’s. As befits a stairway leading to the Ceramic Gallery, its ornaments are made of Minton porcelain. The steps and facings of the steps are a kind of mosaic made of hexagon pellets painted; the walls are panelled with white porcelain; and their effect under the light falling through large figured windows, toned rather than colored, is very good indeed.
Entering now the Ceramic Gallery, we find its contents illustrated by a very ingeniously devised series of window etchings (as they may be called), which are probably unique in the history of work on glass. The windows on one side of this room, fifteen in number, each double, were intrusted to Mr. William B. Scott, who as an archaeologist in art has few superiors. Mr. Scott designed no fewer than forty-eight large pictures, representing the history of ceramic art from the most ancient Chinese, Egyptian, Indian, and Persian down to Wedgwood; and these he has placed in the fifteen windows, where, unhappily, they are little observed, being without mention, much less description, in any work except that now before the reader. They are for the most part in black and white, colors being introduced only once or twice, and then but slightly. The first and second windows are devoted to the Chinese, their work being, if not the earliest, the most ancient in porcelain, and that which has most influenced the European art. Here is shown their whole method, from the preparation of the clay, the half-naked natives bringing the kaolin from caves in panniers, others steeping it in water, refining it in large mortars, and kneading it on tables. The potter is seen before his rude wheel, and forming the vessel by hand-pressure. And after this we trace his work to the furnace, and on to its place in the shop. This work implies the most patient study of original Chinese models. One window represents characteristic Chinese ornamentation—such as the royal dragon and the bird of paradise, and a bazar at Pekin. The third window represents early Egyptian art. The upper part shows the casting of brick by packing in boxes, and then turning it out, all under the whip of the taskmaster, the work and the whip being but little different to-day from what they were in the ancient days whose relics have been so diligently studied by Mr. Scott on the papyri of the British Museum. Beneath, a skilled workman is painting a large Canopus: he is on his knees, with his feet doubled behind him. One page, so to speak, of this window represents Assyrian art by a triumphal procession, in which immense vases are carried on ox trucks, and smaller ones on the heads of prisoners—a design based upon discoveries in Nineveh which show the great importance that people ascribed to earthenware. The fourth window is Greek and Etruscan. The Greek legend of the origin of painting—the daughter of the potter of Sicyon tracing on the wall the shadow of her lover on his leaving her for a journey—is exquisitely done. Next we see the girl applying her plan to her father’s vases. We have also depicted with learning the honorary uses of pottery among the Greeks, the vases given as prizes in public games, or as votive offerings for the dead, by which custom the finest examples we have were transmitted; and, finally, there is the genius of Death holding in her hand the cinerary urn. The fifth window is Hispano-Moresque. The earliest ware in Europe after the Samian of which we have any examples was that made by the Moors, who brought the art of making it from east of the Mediterranean. This was the famous “lustre-ware” which was supplied from Spain, which is now so eagerly sought by collectors, both on account of its beauty and as the origin of the Italian majolica. Specimens of this kind of pottery have been found by Layard at Nineveh and at Ephesus. There appears to be little doubt that it is of Persian origin. It must have been always very difficult to make; in the modern manufacture about fifty per cent. of the pieces come out of the furnace dull and worthless. The fine specimens seem to the workmen happy accidents rather than the steady results of any normal process upon which they can depend. The first design in this window of Mr. Scott’s represents the master-potter amidst his swarthy workmen watching the hour-glass beside the fire. This wonderful lustre was the result of some utilization of smoke in modifying the copper glaze, and was probably discovered by accident, as so many fine effects in the ceramic art have been. This beautiful ware has lately attracted especial attention in England because of the experiments which Mr. De Morgan, son of the late mathematician of University College, is making. He has tried nearly every kind of smoke influence upon copper and silver pigments, in contact with glaze and his success has been remarkable. These lustre-wares are still, I believe, made in some parts of Spain in a small way; also at Gubbio, in Italy; but the furnace of Mr. De Morgan at Chelsea is the most active and successful in bringing out such wares in all their varieties.