ITALIAN MAJOLICA (URBINO). SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
LAMP FROM AN ARABIAN MOSQUE—FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
It adds greatly to the charm of these windows that they are as a frame around the objects whose history they tell. Fine examples of the “lustre-ware” from the earliest ages are in this gallery. And we have only to turn round from admiring another part of this fifth window, showing the building of the Alhambra, and its wonderful vase, to see the finest copy of that unparalleled piece of lustre-ware. The vase is four feet five and a half inches high, by eight feet two and a half inches in circumference; it is decorated with two antelopes, and foliations covering the body of the vase, intermingled with which are African characters whose sense is “Felicity and Fortune,” “Permanent Prosperity;” and the colors are brown and blue on a yellow ground, the lustre being of a mother-of-pearl tint. From rich specimens of ancient Italian majolica we in turn refer to the sixth window, which shows us the embryonic and later phases of this beautiful art. The Italians imitated the Hispano-Moresque lustre as well as they could, but not being able to attain it exactly, they secured new tints of their own, especially a very fine ruby lustre. Afterward they painted their wares without trying to get lustres, to obtain which was perhaps a work too slow and precarious to be profitable. The vast development of ceramic art in Italy has required three windows—sixth, seventh, and eighth—for its representation. First we have bird’s-eye views of the localities with which it was chiefly associated: Urbino, the seat of the finest ware made in the time of Raphael, wherein is portrayed their process of softening and refining the clay by putting it in square pits in the ground; Duranto, with its method of grinding the clay in a sort of water-mill; Gubbio, with its own ingenious processes. Then we have other Italian methods—foot-mill, hand-mill, horse-mill. An artist is seen in his studio, receiving as sitters ladies whose portraits he paints on plates that are to be their marriage gifts—a design taken from a plate in the gallery painted by Maestro Giorgio—while other details have been taken from a MS. by Piccolpasso, also preserved in the museum. And, finally, we have a representation of Luca della Robbia, of the fifteenth century, who used earthenware medallions, admirably modelled and fired with white glaze, which were fixed on the outside of buildings, and may be seen to-day on the Foundling Hospital and several churches at Florence. The very word “majolica” (Majorca) shows that the Italians found their art where the Moors left it. But if they could not equal the moresque lustres, they certainly developed and enriched their designs. Such decorations as that encircling the figure of St. George on the Urbino plate (see engraving) may be called “arabesque,” but they are equally Italian. It is curious to compare such arabesques with the ornament on a piece of real Arabian work, such as the accompanying ancient lamp. (This lamp, singularly enough, is of a form represented in very early Italian bronze carvings of sacred subjects.) Window ninth is devoted to Dutch tiles and pots and Flanders-ware, which were once imported in such vast quantities to this country: here they may be traced from their manufacture in Holland to their sale in the Thames docks. Window tenth relates the curious story of the Dresden-ware. Here it was that the famous material of the best porcelain (kaolin), which was so long the secret of China, was discovered by a happy accident—Böttcher, the alchemist, having taken a notion to analyze the white dust which his barber had used to powder his wig in a year of dear flour. The two men are represented, and also the château of Meissen, where the first Dresden porcelain was secretly made. Window eleventh tells the story of Palissy, who, instructing himself, ruined his family: one leaf of the window shows him feeding his furnace with his broken furniture, while his wife with her babe stands beseechingly by; the other shows his triumph, as he builds and decorates the grottoes in the Tuilleries garden. The story recalls that of Benvenuto Cellini, who, having been seized with a fever while casting his Perseus and Medusa, heard that his work was ruined. Leaping from his bed, he found the furnace burst, but he saw the metal was partly fused; he cast in two hundred pieces of his table-service, and the mould was filled. The great work was saved, and so was the artist; he ate a hearty meal with his workman, slept soundly, and was himself again. Window twelfth is devoted to Sèvres, where porcelain was carried to its highest perfection. The famous “Rose du Barry” and “Bleu du Roi” are represented—and here exquisite colors are used—by Louis XV. and Madame Du Barry exchanging vases of those colors. The old manufactory is pictured, and some of its finest designs, in the lower panes of the window. Near by is the beautiful specimen of Sèvres which France contributed to the first International Exhibition in London. In window thirteenth we are introduced to English wares, at present the most excellent in the world. The processes described are—preparing the clay, making different colored clays, stamping tiles, filling color into moulds, “throwing,” “turning,” applying printed patterns. It takes two of the double windows to display this, which brings us to the fifteenth and last, in which there are four designs of the greatest historical interest: Dr. Doddridge’s mother teaching her child Bible history from the tiles in the fireplace; Dr. Samuel Johnson trying experiments; figures of Josiah Wedgwood and Bentley, his partner; Flaxman and Stothard, the painter. The two artists last named both worked in decorating earthenware for Wedgwood. Flaxman was underpaid by Wedgwood for the numerous models he supplied—models still used by the firm. The poor artist has made the fortunes of three generations of his employer’s family, whose present representatives are so liberal that one must suppose their ancestor to have hardly realized the value of the artist’s work until it was too late to reward him.
PALISSY, THE POTTER—WINDOW IN THE CERAMIC GALLERY.