Pottery and Porcelain, from early times down to the Philadelphia exhibition of 1876
by Charles Wyllys Elliott · English · Gutenberg #46779 · 577,052 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Pottery and Porcelain, from early times down to the Philadelphia exhibition of 1876
Author: Charles Wyllys Elliott
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POTTERY AND PORCELAIN, FROM EARLY TIMES DOWN TO THE PHILADELPHIA EXHIBITION OF 1876 ***
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[Illustration: WEDGWOOD PORTLAND VASE]
POTTERY
AND
PORCELAIN,
_FROM EARLY TIMES
DOWN TO THE PHILADELPHIA EXHIBITION OF 1876_.
BY
CHARLES WYLLYS ELLIOTT.
WITH ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS, AND THE MORE IMPORTANT MARKS
AND MONOGRAMS.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
549 & 551 BROADWAY.
1878.
COPYRIGHT BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
1877.
PREFACE.
What we have attempted has been to gather and present, in a way to be
easily understood, the most important facts respecting "Pottery and
Porcelain."
The study of this interesting subject has for more than a century been
constant in Europe, and notably so during the last twenty-five years. A
correct knowledge of it may now almost be called a liberal education. In
the United States something has been done; and the public mind is now
asking, "What is it that makes 'pottery and porcelain' so attractive to
scholars, statesmen, women, and wits?"
In some degree we have answered this question. My part of the work has
been to gather where I could such historical and technical facts and
such illustrations as seemed most valuable, not only to the student but
to the collector.
Many of these came from Europe, of course, where since Queen Anne's day
the love of "old china" has at times risen to enthusiasm. But I have
drawn from our own collections whenever it has been possible. In the
preparation and engraving of the illustrations I hope the judicious
critic, as well as the judicious public, will give due credit to the
publishers and their artists, who, it seems to me, deserve great praise
for having so well done what they have undertaken to do. Permit me to
say a word for _collectors_.
Busy men who are making railways and coal-pits, under the pleasing
illusion that they are developing the country more than the rest of us,
are apt to think a man with any hobby except that of making money is
wasting his time.
I would like to remind the reader that there are a few--many of them
young men and young women too--who have money enough for all reasonable
wants, and who do not care to waste time and life in getting _more_
money, for which they have no special uses; these persons find a
perennial occupation in the study, the comparison, the purchasing, the
collecting, of all that will illustrate their subject of study--their
hobby. Around this subject of pottery and porcelain may be grouped, if
one so pleases, all the habits, the wants, the inventions, the growths,
of human society.
Some have yet a notion that the study of the politics and the fightings
of man is most important; others, how man came to be an Arminian or an
Augustinian; others, whether the sun is or is not gradually cooling
down, and must finally cease to be, or whether, on the contrary, its
flames are fed by the self-sacrificing stars.
Without detracting from their labors, I beg leave to say that my great
hobby or central fact being the _home_, I hold that whatever makes that
interesting, beautiful, or useful, is, or should be, interesting,
beautiful, and useful, to all the world. I believe that what we call
politics, or government, is only valuable in that it helps to create and
to protect desirable homes; all the rest--all the speeches, and
processions, and crownings, and court-balls, and receptions, and
dinners--are "leather and prunella."
Therefore I believe the "art of living" is first and foremost; to know
how to make _this_ life comfortable and beautiful is all-important. Yet
there is not a teacher of this great art in all the land, although
"professors" are legion.
We may well ask, when we go to a house: "What have they there to tell
us--what to show us? What have they collected to interest, to please, to
instruct?"
If a person has only many bonds bearing coupons locked up in his
safe--delightful as the fact may be to him--what pleasure or
satisfaction is that to us?
But if in that house are gathered all the interesting examples of any
growth of Nature or of Art, what a pleasure to go there!--they may be
beetles, or butterflies, or stones, or shells, or silvers, or
porcelains. I thank God that here is a man who can and does collect--one
who does care for something which I too care for.
I wish, therefore, that every young man and young woman would get a
_hobby_ early in life to which he or she can at any time devote some
spare time and spare money. _Ennui_, the demon who afflicts the idle, is
thus exorcised, and vice loses its charming power.
The collector, too, does not waste his money. There is not a collection
of pictures or of minerals, of birds or of butterflies, of chinas or of
books, of armor or of gems, of laces or of tapestries, if made with
ordinary care and knowledge, but is worth more--often ten times or fifty
times more--than it has cost. Even in a pecuniary way, therefore, the
hobby is productive; and the collection is not only as interesting, but
it is as good as gold.
OUR COLLECTIONS.--Of collections of porcelain and pottery one must of
course look for great exhibitions to the museums of Europe--such as the
Kensington Museum, in London; the Cluny, in Paris; the Green Vaults, in
Dresden; the Oriental, at Leyden--and to private collections, such as
the Rothschilds have made at London and at Paris, to Lady Schreiber's,
and many more, in England.
What are accessible to us are the private collections of some of our own
people.
In New York, Mr. WILLIAM C. PRIME's collection is quite large, numbering
some four thousand pieces. It is particularly devoted to the porcelains
of Europe, and is an excellent collection. In it are some four or five
complete dinner-services of old Dresden and Sèvres porcelain, and many
single pieces which rank high.
Mr. S. P. AVERY's collection of Oriental porcelains is the most complete
we have, and is very rich in all the departments, especially the
Chinese. His pieces of "celestial blue" number more than any other
single collection in this country.
In the Loan Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art have been
exhibited many examples from Mr. Prime's collection of porcelains, and
about five hundred pieces of Oriental ware from Mr. Avery's, of nearly
every distinctive style made in China and Japan in their best times.
The collection of Mr. ROBERT HOE, Jr., is extremely choice in its
admirable specimens of Oriental porcelain. Its egg-shells, crackles, and
"celestial blues," are not to be excelled. In this collection are also
examples of other styles, among them some of the best of old Dresden.
Mr. W. L. ANDREWS, of New York, has a very choice collection of Oriental
porcelain, probably the best in the country, and, containing the most of
the "rose-back" and other "egg-shell."
Mr. EDWARD CUNNINGHAM, of Milton, Massachusetts, has many superb vases,
some of them of great size, obtained by himself in China.
In Albany, Mr. J. V. L. PRUYN has several complete dinner-services of
Sèvres porcelain, made for King Louis Philippe, one large service of
Lowestoft, and many other individual and interesting specimens. Some of
his examples of Sèvres painting cannot be surpassed. He has also a small
breakfast-service of "celestial blue," mounted in silver, which is
excellent.
In Boston, Mr. G. W. WALES's collection is very varied and rich. He has
excellent examples of Oriental and of European porcelains, and some
perfect pieces of "celestial blue." Many of his best specimens are on
loan in the Boston Art Museum.
Mrs. ANSON BURLINGAME's collection of Chinese porcelain, at Cambridge,
made while in China, is not large, but it has in it some of the best
examples of the "green," the "celestial blue," the "rose," and the
"chrysanthemum." Some of these have been exhibited in the Loan
Collection in Boston.
Dr. F. W. LEWIS and Mr. E. S. CLARKE, of Philadelphia, have small and
good collections, particularly devoted to Oriental porcelains.
Mr. W. S. VAUX and Dr. LEWIS have made interesting exhibitions of the
pottery of Greece and of Italy.
Mr. JOSEPH A. CLAY, of Philadelphia, has a small and valuable collection
of early Peruvian pottery, of the period before the Spanish Conquest.
There is also a varied collection of South and North American Indian
pottery in the Peabody Museum at Cambridge.
There may be, and probably are, in the United States many interesting
collections of which I know nothing. I am told that Mr. WALTERS, of
Baltimore, and Mr. PROBASCO, of Cincinnati, both have many very rare and
valuable pieces; but, I regret to say, I have had no opportunity of
seeing them.
I do not doubt that the love for these fine works of man's hand will
grow, that more and more small collections will be begun, and that time
will make them large and valuable and interesting.
A word of caution may be said to guard against imitations, which abound
in Europe. I hear now that the Chinese and Japanese are learning, all
too quickly, our Christian ways of counterfeiting, and are likely to
better the instruction.
In conclusion, I implore our people not to fill their houses with
imitations of old things--not even when the antiques are good is it
desirable to encourage porcelain-painters in that sort of thing: when it
comes to copying antiquity which is _poor_, it is inexcusable; and when
we reach the _counterfeiting_ of the antique, it smacks of baseness.
For this sort of thing we, the public, are responsible. The painter
paints what will sell.
No gentleman or lady should consent to be shabby, or to help other
people along that facile road. Let us keep our eyes open to any and all
_new_ work which is good, and especially to all which shows originality
and courage on the part of modelers or of painters. Let us moderns
admire the good in the Orientals, but let us worship our _own_ gods, and
dare and do for ourselves.
As far as practicable, I have in these pages pointed to examples, and
have illustrated by such as are owned in this country; so that many
persons who wish to examine these interesting works of fictile art may
see them for themselves.
The public collections are of course all open; and I am glad to say that
private collectors seem willing and ready to open their collections to
students as much as possible. It is human and pleasant to wish that
others should enjoy what we enjoy.
_Marks_, and especially upon porcelain, are not the most important
thing; but still they are important, and to many are most satisfactory.
I have therefore included in this volume all the prominent ones; so that
the book will be found useful not only to the collector at home, but
also to him who travels abroad.
The traveler who has a wise hobby gets a thousand times more pleasure
from his travels than he who has no purpose except change of place and
aimless movement. I suggest to the man who has none to try "pottery and
porcelain."
As to _prices_ of porcelain, etc., I have given those paid at actual
sales whenever I could find them; they will be of service to buyers and
collectors, as something of a guide to what they may safely pay.
_Books_ which may be referred to, and especially such as may be found in
some of our public libraries, are given at the end of the volume.
I hope the public will buy this book, and also good pottery and
porcelain.
_C. W. E._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
UNGLAZED POTTERY.
The Pottery of the Stone Age.--The Lacustrine Dwellings.--Vases of the
Bronze Age.--Peruvian Pottery.--Mexican Pottery.--Pottery of Western
Mounds.--The Cesnola Collections.--Roman Pottery.--Saxon and
Scandinavian Pottery.--The Pottery of Ancient Gaul--of Ancient
Germany.....PAGE 13
CHAPTER II.
UNGLAZED POTTERY.--THE GREEK VASE.
Palaces of Homer's Heroes.--The Ceramicus at Athens.--Egyptian
Pottery.--Etruscan Tombs.--Good and Bad Vases.--Age of Vases.--Various
Styles.--The Archaic Style.--The Fine Style.--Beauty a Birthright.--Aspasia's
House.--Names of Vases.--The Cup of Arcesilaus.--Number of Extant
Vases.--Their Uses.--The Greek Houses.--Greek Women.--Greek Men.--The
Hetairai.--Etruscan Vases.....29
CHAPTER III.
UNGLAZED POTTERY AT THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1876.
Unglazed Water-Colors.--Clay Sketches.--Japanese Clay Figures.--Spanish
Pots.--Italian Peasant Pottery.--Egyptian.--Turkish.--Mexican.--Watcombe
Terra-cotta.--Copenhagen Pottery.....63
CHAPTER IV.
GLAZED POTTERY.--GRÈS DE FLANDRE, FRENCH, GERMAN, ETC.
Definition of Glaze.--Varnish.--Enamel in Egypt, Babylon.--The Arabs and
the Moors.--Grès de Flandre.--Cologne, Regensburg, Baireuth, Neuwied,
Grenzhausen, Coblentz.--Holland.--Beauvais.--Flanders.--Apostle-Mugs.
--Graybeards.--"Bellarmines."--"Pottle-Pots."--Modern Work.--Doulton
Stone-ware.--Early German Stone-ware at Breslau.--Hirschvogel.
--Nuremberg.....69
CHAPTER V.
GLAZED POTTERY.--MOORISH, PERSIAN, RHODIAN, ETC., ETC.
The Arabs in Spain.--Cordova, Granada, Seville.--Enamel and
Lustres.--Hispano-Moresque.--The Alhambra.--Tiles.--Vase of the
Alhambra.--Malaga.--Majorca and Maiolica.--Rhodian Pottery.--Damascus
Pottery.--Persian and Arabic Pottery.--Persian Porcelain.--Persian and
Arabic Tiles.....81
CHAPTER VI.
GLAZED POTTERY.--ITALIAN MAIOLICAS.
The Word Maiolica, or Majolica.--Italian Renaissance.--The Dark
Ages.--The Crusades.--The Mezza-Maiolica.--The True Maiolica.--Luca
della Robbia.--Urbino.--Xanto and Fontana.--Raffaelesque Ware.--Mr.
Fortnum.--Prices to-day.--Gubbio.--Maestro Giorgio.--The
Lustres.--Castel-Durante.--Faenza.--The Sgraffito.--Forli, Venice,
Castelli, etc.--Castellani.--Maiolicas at the Centennial.....95
CHAPTER VII.
FRENCH FAIENCE.--PALISSY WARE, AND HENRI-DEUX WARE.
Bernard Palissy.--The Catholics and the
Huguenots.--Saintes.--Figurines.--The Centennial
Exhibition.--Prices.--Henri-Deux--where made--when.--Copies at
Philadelphia.--List of Pieces extant, and Prices.....123
CHAPTER VIII.
FRENCH FAIENCE.--NEVERS, ROUEN, BEAUVAIS, ETC.
Number of Manufactories.--Their Rise and
Decline.--Nevers.--Prices.--Beauvais.--Rouen.--Moustiers.--Strasbourg,
or Haguenau.--Marseilles.--Sarreguemines.--Sinceny, Nancy, Creil,
Montpellier.--Paris.--Paris to-day.--Limoges.--Deck.....138
CHAPTER IX.
DUTCH DELFT AND ENGLISH EARTHEN-WARE.
Delft, Number of Fabriques.--Haarlem.--Paste.--Great
Painters.--Violins.--Tea-Services.--A Dutch Stable.--Broeck Dutch
Tiles.--England.--Queen Elizabeth.--Pepys's Diary.--Brown
Stone-ware.--The Tyg.--Lambeth Pottery.--Fulham Pottery.--Elers.--Elizabethan
Pottery.--Stoke-upon-Trent.--Josiah Wedgwood.--Cheapness.--Queen's-ware.
--Jasper-ware.--Flaxman.--Cameos.--Basalt.--The Portland Vase.--Prices.....153
CHAPTER X.
THE PORCELAIN OF CHINA.
Difficulties.--The Porcelain Tower at Nanking.--First Making of
Porcelain.--Kaolin and Pe-tun-tse.--Marco Polo.--Portuguese
Importation.--The City of King-te-chin.--Jacquemart's Groups.--Symbolic
Decoration.--Inscriptions.--The Ming Period.--The Celestial Blue.--The
Celadons.--Reticulated Cups.--The Crackle.--Various Periods.--Individualism.
--Marks and Dates.....175
CHAPTER XI.
THE PORCELAIN OF JAPAN.
Corean Porcelain.--Katosiro-ouye-mon.--The Province of Idsoumi.--Styles
prevailing in Japan.--Marks.--Japanese Blue.--Indian Porcelain.--Dutch
East India Company.--Egg-shell and Crackle.--Mandarin China.--Kaga
Ware.--Satsuma Ware.--Japanese Art.--The Philadelphia Exhibition.....210
CHAPTER XII.
THE PORCELAINS OF CENTRAL EUROPE--DRESDEN, BERLIN, HÖCHST, ETC.
Dresden China.--Porcelain in Europe.--The Alchemists.--Augustus
II.--Böttger.--Tschirnhaus.--Experiments.--Kaolin discovered.--Höroldt
and Kändler.--Fine Art, or Decorative Art.--Lindenir.--Angelica
Kauffmann.--Rococo-Work.--Collectors.--Marcolini.--Prices.--Marks.--Berlin.
--The Seven Years' War.--Frederick the Great.--Prices.--Marks.--Vienna.
--Stenzel.--Maria Theresa.--Lamprecht.--Prices.--Marks.--Hungary.--Herend.
--Fischer.--Marks.--Höchst, or Mayence.--Ringler.--Marks.--Frankenthal, or
Bavarian.--Carl Theodor.--Melchior.--Prices.--Marks.--Fürstenburg, or
Brunswick.--Von Lang.--Prices.--Marks.--Nymphenburg.--Heintzmann and
Lindemann.--Prices.--Marks.--Ludwigsburg, or Kronenburg.--Fulda.
--Hesse-Cassel.--Switzerland.--Marks.....229
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PORCELAIN OF FRANCE--ST.-CLOUD, CHANTILLY, SÈVRES, ETC.
Hard and Soft Porcelain.--Discovery of Kaolin.--St.-Cloud.--_Pâte
Tendre._--Marks.--Rouen.--Small Manufactories.--Marks of
same.--Chantilly.--Scéaux-Penthièvre.--Niderviller.--Marks.--Limoges.
--Sèvres.--Flower-Work.--Hard Porcelain, _Pâte Dure_.--The Grand Monarque.
--Florid Taste.--Boucher.--Vieux Sèvres.--Three Vases.--Greek Vases.--Prices
at Bernal Sale.--Chemists.--Colors used.--Collections.--Art
Museums.--Alexandra Brongniart.--Marks and Dates.....253
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PORCELAINS OF SOUTHERN EUROPE--ITALY, SPAIN, ETC.
Florentine, or Medicean.--Is it a True Porcelain?--The House of
Medici.--Marks.--Doccia Porcelain.--The MarquisGinori.--Beccheroni.--Present
Work.--Marks.--Venice.--Vezzi.--Cozzi.--Marks.--Turin.--Gioanetti.--Marks.
--Nove.--Terraglia.--Marks.--Capo di Monte.--Naples.--In
Relief.--Marks.--Spanish Porcelain.--Buen Retiro.--Marks.--Portugal.....274
CHAPTER XV.
THE PORCELAINS OF ENGLAND.
Bow.--Chelsea.--Derby.--Chelsea-Derby.--Lowestoft.--Worcester.--Chamberlains.
--Plymouth.--Bristol.--Pinxton.--Nantgaraw.--Swansea.--Turners.--Coalport.
--Coalbrookdale.--Herculaneum.--Shelton, New Hall.--Rockingham.--Spode,
Copeland.--Place.--Daniell.--Minton.--Prices and Marks.....288
CHAPTER XVI.
THE PORCELAINS OF NORTHERN EUROPE.
Holland and Belgium.--Oriental
Trade.--Weesp.--Marks.--Loosdrecht.--Amstel, Old and New.--Marks.--The
Hague.--Marks.--Lille.--Mark.--Tournay.--Marks.--Sweden.--Gustavus
Adolphus and Charles XII.--Marieberg.--Rörstrand.--Marks.--Denmark.
--Copenhagen.--Marks.--Russia.--Peter the Great.--Catherine II.--Marks.
--Tver.--Gardner.--Moscow.--Popoff.--Gulena.--Mark.--Poland.--Korzec.....319
CHAPTER XVII.
POTTERY AND PORCELAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
The First Porcelain made here.--Bonnin and Morris.--Franklin
Institute.--William Ellis Tucker.--Tucker and Hemphill.--Thomas
Tucker.--General Tyndale.--Porcelain of T. C. Smith and Sons.--Early
Advertisements.--Josiah Wedgwood.--Lord Sheffield's Report.--Alexander
Hamilton's Report.--History of Norwich.--Samuel Dennis, New
Haven.--Isaac Hanford, Hartford.--Gallatin's Report.--The "Washington
Pitchers."--Lyman and Fenton, Vermont.--Rouse and Turner, New
Jersey.--Potteries at Trenton.--In Ohio.--The Centennial
Exhibition.....331
POTTERY AND PORCELAIN.
CHAPTER I.
UNGLAZED POTTERY.
The Pottery of the Stone Age.--The Lacustrine Dwellings.--Vases of
the Bronze Age.--Peruvian Pottery.--Mexican Pottery.--Pottery of
Western Mounds.--The Cesnola Collections.--Roman Pottery.--Saxon
and Scandinavian Pottery.--The Pottery of Ancient Gaul--of Ancient
Germany.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--_Bowl of the Stone Age._]
So ancient is the potter's art that it may be said to have begun with
the beginnings of man. A belief exists still in Silesia that there is a
mountain out of which cups and jugs spring spontaneously, as the
mushrooms shoot from the moist soil of the plains. Interwoven, then, as
pottery is with the history of the race, having relations daily and
hourly with man's universal and greatest vocation--the preparation of
the food which supports and continues _life_--it has had and will have
an interest as vital as it is wide-spread.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--_Vase of the Stone Age._]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--_Vase of the Bronze Age._]
MAN A COOKING ANIMAL.--Man is the only cooking animal, so far as I know.
It is easy to believe that archaic man, when he began to evolve from the
animal state, at once began to invent, and that, after he had discovered
the uses of fire, the first need was of vessels which could be used upon
the fire to seethe and boil.
And what do we find?
THE REINDEER AGE--THE STONE AGE.--Of prehistoric times, when the
reindeer roved free over Europe, even to the shores of the
Mediterranean, in the Stone age, even when man lived in caves and was
only able to fashion things with stones, a few pots have been found,
showing how early his wants led him to fashion things of clay.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--_Vase of the Bronze Age._]
The LACUSTRINE DWELLINGS of the Stone Age have given up a few traces of
men. The remains of lake-dwellers have been found mostly in Switzerland,
but somewhat in Ireland and Scotland. These reveal a people who built
their huts for safety upon piles or upon fascines anchored in the small
lakes. A variety of interesting things, consisting of spear-heads,
knives, hatchets, etc., have been found, some of flint, some of bone,
and some of bronze. Among these, which pertain to our subject, are a few
pots of clay, which have survived the gnawing tooth of Time.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--_Bronze Age._]
In Figs. 1 and 2 are to be seen two of these. They are coarse and
clumsy, and are of blackish-gray clay, hardened in the sun or in an
insufficient fire. They are not turned upon a wheel, but show marks of
the fingers impressed in the soft clay. Yet we cannot but be struck with
the faint attempt at decoration to be seen on the foot of one of them,
even in that era of savageness.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--_Bronze Age._]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--_Bronze Age._]
The BRONZE AGE yields up pottery which does not yet show the invention
of the potter's wheel. The work is still moulded by the hand, but the
clay is better, and the forms begin to show clear indications of a
sense of proportion and a considerable degree of choice. The shapes are
in greater variety, and some of them certainly are good. Of the five
examples (Figs. 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) none are very bad, and two (Figs. 3
and 4), if not three, are excellent.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--_Peruvian._]
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--_Peruvian._]
The pointed bottom appears here as it does in the early forms of the
Greek amphora; and, as the illustrations show, this involves a necessity
for a further invention in the tripods upon which they rest. I have seen
no explanation of this more difficult construction, and can think of
none. It is certainly no easier to make the pointed than the flat
bottom, and it certainly is not so useful. Why, then, was it so common?
I can only suppose that when _first_ made the point was intended to be
thrust into the ground; but the moment they had hit upon the flat
bottom, that moment the point, I should fancy, would have been
abandoned; but it evidently was not. Perhaps they loved the _old_ as
some of us do, not because it was good, but _because it was old_. Who
can tell?
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--_Ancient Peru._]
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--_Ancient Peru._]
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--_Ancient Peru._]
How early the varied decoration showed itself we cannot know, but in
many examples of early fictile work, the meander, the chevron or
saw-tooth, and the fret, now called the Greek fret, are sure to
appear--and among the most diverse and distant nations; so, too, the
forms and the uses of the vessels.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--_Ancient Peru._]
Do not these things show that man develops everywhere along a
corresponding line? They have not copied from one another, but a like
want has produced a similar result in all.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--_Ancient Peru._]
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--_Ancient Peru._]
As we approach the historic ages, we find among the Egyptians, the
Mexicans, the Peruvians, the Greeks, the Assyrians, the Romans, the
Gauls, the Germans, the use of the potter's wheel, one of the earliest
machines made by man. Of the Egyptian and Greek pottery I shall have
something to say in a chapter upon the "_Greek Vase_."
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--_Roman Cup._]
The MEXICAN pottery, sometimes called _Aztec_, is usually of reddish
clay, and the vessels are almost identical in form and decoration with
those of the Peruvians, which will appear in their place. They are of
great variety, and must have been made in large numbers. The Mexicans
also made grotesques and idols of clay, which are usually hideous, and
are intended to be; for the gods of evil were those they feared and
worshiped most. These potteries are of unglazed clay, as are all those
we are now treating.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--_Roman Vase._]
The civilizations which organized themselves in Mexico have always been
an interesting and curious study. When Cortez and his conquering,
gold-seeking white men reached the high lands of the beautiful interior
(1517), they found the splendid city of Mexico, built over and along the
shores of the inland lake, and stretching toward the foot-hills which
protect it from unfriendly winds. Here the Aztecs had organized society.
They had succeeded to the Toltecs, a prosperous, industrious, and
probably a peaceful people--a people coming from the warmer South, and
unable to cope with the more hardy Aztecs, who came down from the North.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--_Roman Vase found at London._]
These Aztecs had not only developed the arts of architecture and
painting, as well as most of the mechanic arts; they had also reached to
a literature, to laws, to a religion most elaborate and splendid; and
they had not neglected to conquer and tax surrounding tribes, and make
them pay tribute, as all the "great" white nations of the world have
done. But all their civilizations, laws, religions, arts, were swept
into ruin by the conquering hand of Cortez and his successors.
And what have we now in Mexico? What has come of the destruction of the
great Indian races there? What but greed, anarchy, cruelty, ruin? It
would be a curious speculation now to picture what that country--the
most beautiful and most bountiful--might now be in the hands of its own
people, and with a government which could protect life and make labor
safe. As it is, its life and its art give us nothing to look at or to
enjoy.
Must man always destroy first in order that he may build up, and then be
himself destroyed? No remains have come to us of glazed pottery
belonging to these times; and it is probable that, their wants being
fewer, their climate milder, and their food simpler, invention was not
so much on the alert as it might have been in a colder and harsher
climate. That these races were for some unknown reason superior to those
living farther to the north, none will doubt when they know what they
accomplished as compared with the Indians of the United States.
The PERUVIANS were the most cultivated and comfortable nation upon the
Western Continent when Pizarro (1531) invaded, and, I may say, destroyed
them. Indeed, when we read the accounts given of them by the Spanish
writers themselves, we have only another proof that what we call
"carrying to other peoples the blessings of civilization and
Christianity" means rather the cursing them with cruelty and greed.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--_Vase. Pottery of Ancient Gaul._]
A large collection of their pottery was shown at the United States
Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, and there is a sufficient and most
interesting exhibit of it in the Peabody Museum at Harvard in Cambridge.
In this collection, also, are to be found many examples of like unglazed
pottery found in the Western mounds of the United States by Professors
Shaler and Carr, who for some years have been engaged in researches in
Kentucky and at other points in the West.
Upon some examples of this American pottery (Figs. 8 to 15) are to be
seen decorations in color, mostly red, black, and brown; and it would
seem impossible that these colors should have lasted through so many
centuries, if they were not fixed by fire, and therefore were mineral.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--_Pottery of Ancient Gaul._]
The decorations, too, were somewhat varied, but in none which I have
seen do they go beyond the elementary styles already mentioned.
The production of idols and fantastic vases, animals and grotesques,
must have been extensive, as so many of these have already been found;
indicating that they must have been common in their day. Examples of
this fantastic decoration and modeling are seen in Figs. 12 to 15--and
in Fig. 14 is an approach to portraiture. In one (Fig. 15) is seen the
double-bellied bottle, so much in use in China and Japan. The
twin-bottles seen in Figs. 8 and 9 are good examples of a fancy which
evidently pleased potter and people in those "good old Peruvian times."
A most singular fact is mentioned by Demmin, that on one of their
_casseroles_ the handle is clearly the phallus, symbol of life, found on
Egyptian sculptures, and once worshiped.
One curious fact is asserted by the French _savants_,[1] that there is
abundant evidence to show that through a long succession of years,
perhaps three thousand, the character of these American potteries grew
less and less pure and simple, and more and more debased and vulgar;
which one can well believe, when we see everywhere that whole nations,
some of them calling themselves civilized, have gone the same road,
downward from the good to the bad, and not upward toward the true and
the beautiful.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--_Ancient Gaul._]
The opening of the CESNOLA collections, at the New York Museum of Arts,
shows us a vast number of early potteries which are as yet hardly
classified or understood. Many of them bear marks of Assyrian or of
Phoenician inspiration; and among them are rude vessels closely
resembling those of Peru, and also many grotesque forms of vases and
animals, such as mark the early attempts at Art in other nations. That
collection should be examined by those who are interested in this
subject.
The hand-book published by the Museum is full of condensed information,
and should be carefully preserved.
The pottery of the ROMANS went wherever their armies went. Thus it is
found in France, in England, in Germany, in Spain, etc., etc. This Roman
pottery has been found where excavations have been made, in Italy, in
France, in England, along the Rhine, and in other places. It is
distinguished as being more heavy and clumsy in form than that made in
Greece, and the color of the clay is red, lighter or darker. The best of
the Roman ware is often called _Samian_, because it was supposed to
resemble that made at Samos in Greece, though it is quite different. The
finest pieces approach to the color of sealing-wax, and have a lustre
thin and brilliant, which has given rise to some dispute whether or not
it is the result of an applied mineral varnish, or whether it is the
product of careful hand-friction, developed and perfected by a high
heat. The varnish, if such, is so thin that it has not been possible to
analyze and decide upon it.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--_Ancient Gaul._]
This red Samian or Roman much resembles the polished red ware made
to-day in Egypt--of which a collection was shown in the recent
Philadelphia Exhibition, and this bore no varnish.
One thing remarked as to this Roman pottery is, that it is never
decorated with designs or ornaments in one or more colors. The
decoration is sometimes incised, but more often is in relief. This is
curious, too, as those master-potters, the Greeks, used colors in their
designs. These pieces are to be seen in the museums of Paris, London,
and elsewhere. The example engraved (Fig. 16) is a cup on which the
decoration is in relief, and the fillets and bands are carefully moulded
on the potter's wheel.
Figs. 17 and 18 were found in excavations made in 1845 in the city of
London, and are excellent examples of this pottery. They are now in the
Museum of Geology at London.
Fig. 17 is a sort of vase, or perhaps a drinking-cup, and is ornamented
with the head of an animal. It is described as of "a pale red with a
darkish-brown varnish."
Fig. 18 is called the "Cup of Samos," resembling so much as it does the
work made at Samos. While these pieces were found in the earth beneath
the city of London, many others have been found elsewhere; and much is
believed to have been made at the old Anglo-Roman town of Caistre, in
England, where remains of many furnaces have been unearthed.
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--_Ancient Gaul._]
Roman pottery has been found on the banks of the Rhine, near Bonn,
Coblentz, Mayence, in Baden, etc., etc.; in France, at Auvergne, and at
other points.
This finer work is supposed to date about the first century of our era.
It is classed by M. Demmin as being made at Arezzo, the ancient Aretium,
in Tuscany.
COMMONER styles of Roman pottery were made, and many examples of these
have been found of a coarser clay, and varying in color, gray, black,
and yellow, or light paleish red; sometimes with a black or brown
varnish. These were doubtless made for the common uses of the kitchen.
The drinking-cups of this pottery often bore inscriptions, such as
_Ave_, welcome; _Vivas_, live; _Bibe_, drink; _Vive, bibe multum_, live
and drink much, etc.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--_Ancient German._]
Pottery was undoubtedly made by the Saxons, the Scandinavians, the
Gauls, and the Germans, before the coming of Roman armies and Roman
potters. Of these early remains examples have been found in the
_barrows_ of England, and in other excavations.
M. Cleuziou published a work in 1872, "La Poterie Gauloise,"[2] warmly
and strenuously claiming for the Gauls an art and a pottery before the
coming of the all-grasping Romans; who, he asserts, not only stole their
country, but also have claimed to be their benefactors and civilizers
when they were not. I cannot, of course, discuss the question here. The
engravings given (Figs. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23) are quoted by M. Figuier,
from whom I take them, as examples of this early and curious work. Some
of these certainly seem to indicate an inspiration original and quite
different from what we see among the Romans. Later, and after the coming
of the Romans, there were produced in Gaul vases and other articles,
which may well be called "_Gallo-Romaine_," or _Gallic-Roman_.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--_German Pottery._]
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--_German Pottery._]
The GERMAN potters also produced at a very early day large quantities of
pottery, which has a character of its own. That it must have been very
extensively made and used is evident from the many specimens exhumed in
various parts of Germany; in such numbers, indeed, that the peasantry
have a profound belief they are the work of the dwarfs, and that they
sprout spontaneously like mushrooms, as I have said. The examples we
present are more simple than most of the Roman work, and the decoration
is more severe. (Figs. 24, 25, 26.)
Pots, vases, and children's toys, are also found in tombs in various
parts of Germany, some of which show decided marks of art.
In some of these are found the ashes of the dead, in others bones broken
up, and so preserved.
CHAPTER II.
UNGLAZED POTTERY.--THE GREEK VASE.
Palaces of Homer's Heroes.--The Ceramicus at Athens.--Egyptian
Pottery.--Etruscan Tombs.--Good and Bad Vases.--Age of
Vases.--Various Styles.--The Archaic Style.--The Fine
Style.--Beauty a Birthright.--Aspasia's House.--Names of
Vases.--The Cup of Arcesilaus.--Number of Extant Vases.--Their
Uses.--The Greek Houses.--Greek Women.--Greek Men.--The
Hetairai.--Etruscan Vases.
The GREEK VASE has come to be a synonym for beauty of form. Not that
every Greek vase is perfect--by no means--but that the Greeks had come
to feel and were able to express perfection of form in it as it had not
been done before, and as it has not been better done since.
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--_Egyptian Kylix._]
So much interest hangs around this expression of the potter's art, that
we give more space to the subject than to many other branches of the
art. Keeping this perfection in mind, the manner of life of those
Greeks, out of which the Greek vase grew, becomes of value, and is
indeed of most interest.
How did the Greeks live, and why was the Greek vase made?
That the finest houses or palaces of the chiefs of the Heroic or Homeric
period were larger, and more marked by barbaric splendor, than were the
dwellings of the great in the days of Pericles, is admitted.
We give from Mr. Bryant's translation of the Iliad a brief description
of Hector's return to Troy from the battle-field:
"And now had Hector reached the Scean gates
And beechen tree. Around him flocked the wives
And daughters of the Trojans eagerly;
Tidings of sons and brothers they required,
And friends and husbands. He admonished all
Duly to importune the gods in prayer,
For woe he said was near to many a one."
He passed onward in search of Andromache:
"And then he came to Priam's noble hall,
A palace built with graceful porticoes,
And fifty chambers near each other walled
With polished stone, the rooms of Priam's sons,
And of their wives; and opposite to these
Twelve chambers for his daughters, also near
Each other; and with polished marble walls,
The sleeping-rooms of Priam's sons-in-law
And their unblemished consorts. There he met
His gentle mother on her way to seek
Her fairest child Laodice."
That the description is glorified, we need not doubt, for that is the
province of poetry; and poor is the poet who does not see the beauty
through the squalor, the sunshine through the cloud.
The Greek house of the time of Pericles was much smaller and less
splendid than this.
It is a curious fact to know that most of what remains to us of the
_living_ Greeks and Egyptians has been saved for us by the dead. Not a
complete house of the living exists; while those of the dead have been
unearthed not only in Greece, but in parts of Italy, which in many
places was colonized by Greeks, and in which Greek customs and Greek
art had a strong hold.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--_Egyptian Bottle, Side and Front View._]
The Egyptians honored their dead, the Greeks honored their dead, and the
Romans honored their dead. Let them have our thanks; for, because of
that, things of interest and beauty are left to us.
In their tombs have been found gold-work, jewels, manuscripts, vases:
all of which tell their stories of the way men lived, how they worked,
what they sought; all of which show us that man then was the same as man
is now--if you pricked him he bled, if you tickled him he laughed. We
are apt to think that the Past was ignorant, brutal, savage. Have we,
boastful as we are, made porcelain better than the Chinese? Have we made
vases more beautiful than the Greeks? Poetry more musical?
In the far past man was savage, brutal, ignorant; and there is in man
still the latent tiger. In the civilization of which we boast, there
exist in all great cities, side by side with luxury and splendor,
poverty, wretchedness, squalor, brutality.
In the days of Pericles, in those days when the Amphora and the Temple
reached their most perfect development, the influences of Art and Poetry
were most potent upon that small democratic oligarchy which possessed
Athens and tyrannized over Greece. Then the tiger lay down in the midst
of a wonderful wealth of architecture, sculpture, poetry, eloquence,
painting (we suppose), and pottery. Then a whole district of the city to
the northwest of the Acropolis and the Areopagus was occupied by the
shops of the potter and the painter, and was known as the CERAMICUS, or
_Keramicus_, as it now is often spelled. From that centre went out into
all the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea thousands upon thousands of
those vases and pots which were made and decorated there, and from whose
pictures we have drawn much of our knowledge of Greek life, art,
manners, and dress.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--_Egyptian Vase._]
In this high time of ART lay the seeds of corruption and death. The
Athenian Greek became critical, refined, weak, luxurious, corrupt,
base; and then he went to decay. In some tombs (Fig. 30) opened in
Italy, the body is found lying at length in the middle, and about it
stand perfect vases, love-offerings of friends: were they once filled
with perfumes upon which the spirit of the dead was wafted away? We
place flowers in the graves of our lovely ones, and, beautiful as they
are, they vanish with the dead. But the Greek vase remains to us after
the lapse of two thousand years.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--_Tomb found in the Environs of Naples._]
When the Greeks--how early--began to fashion their fine work is not
surely known; but pottery of theirs exists dating as far back as 700 B.
C. Behind them were the Assyrians and the Egyptians, both nations great
in war and great in the arts of peace. The remains we have of both show
the Egyptians to have been the masters, with whom began those arts which
grew and bore fruit in Assyria and in Greece. But the art of the
Egyptians seems never to have reached the lightness, the delicacy, the
exquisite beauty of line, which yet glorify the fictile art of Greece.
Older than the oldest writings of the Hebrews, older than Homer, is the
potter's wheel; through all history it has been the friend and companion
of man; its products are part of his daily life; and delicate, brittle
as they are, they have proved more enduring than the Pyramids.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--_The Archaic Period._]
Nearly all the pieces of pottery found in Egypt belong to those things
which went into the daily uses of life. Most of them are of common clay,
with common forms, and rude finish; and they seem to have been of all
shapes and designed for many purposes. Great casks, vases, pots for oil,
for grain, for meats, for wines, for drugs, for lamps; children's
marbles, checkers, toys, rings, amulets, bottles, etc., etc., are among
the many things shaped by the potter in Egypt.
Of those things made for ornamental purposes, there still exist some
vases which approach the simple beauty of the Greek; of which we give
one as pictured by Wilkinson in his work upon the antiquities of Egypt.
Fig. 27 is an _Egyptian kylix_ or _drinking-cup_. It much resembles the
Greek kylix or cylix, except that the foot is less perfect.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--_The Departure of Achilles, from Vase in the
Louvre._]
The highly-ornamented bottle (Fig. 28, _aryballos_) is another thing
made purely for purposes of luxury, which Potiphar's wife used to hold
her dainty perfumes--perfumes which, we may easily believe, would add to
her dangerous charms. It is modeled from the African calabash, which was
the first vessel used there for carrying water. Form and decoration are
both perfect in this small bottle.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--_Kylix, of an Early Form._]
We add a figure of very ancient Egyptian pottery, an early example of
the efforts of that people at the human figure in clay. It is made to
serve the purposes of a vase, whether for religious uses or other we do
not know (Fig. 29).
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--_Kylix, Finer Form._]
The terra-cotta earthenware vases and cups of the Greek and Etruscan
potters, by universal consent, have come to be accepted as the most
beautiful and satisfactory. That they were thus perfect from the start,
and always so, no one need maintain; but that from Greece and from many
parts of it should have come such a vast number of vessels, nearly all
of which are beyond criticism, is what no one can fully explain.
Whence came the inspiration, the perception of beauty, which made the
ordinary potter an artist, no man can tell.
It is not possible that the men who worked at the potter's wheel in
Athens, or in Samos, or in Crete, were "educated," as we say it, to such
a fine sense of the beautiful. We, with all the education we can put
into our people, do not equal them. We can no more explain this than we
can tell how such a wonderful growth of beautiful cathedrals shot up
into life in France in what we call the "Middle Ages." Nor was this
perfection only to be found among the potters who worked in Greece. It
brought forth works fit for gods in Cyrenaica, on the northern coast of
Africa, in great abundance; of which farther on we give an example in
the _Cup of Arcesilaus_. The wandering potters who went into Italy, and
there produced those beautiful vases, were Greeks. We have been in the
habit of calling them "Etruscan vases," because they have been found in
largest numbers and in most perfect preservation in Etruria. But it is
now well known that the real Etruscan potters never reached the same
technical skill, or had any such eye for form, as was common among the
Greeks.
[Illustration: FIG. 35.--_Greek Rhyton, in the Louvre._]
I have mentioned the tombs--that many of the finest Greek vases have
been found in those of Italy, and particularly in the part once called
Etruria. In Fig. 30 is shown one of these tombs discovered near Naples.
In it may be seen the remains of the body, with vases of various shapes
standing or hanging on the wall. Most of the vases found with the dead
in Greece were buried in the soil, and are thus less perfect than those
found in Italy.
[Illustration: FIG. 36.--_Greek Amphora, Panathenaic._]
GOOD AND BAD.--While, then, we can exalt the Greek vase to a foremost
place in the perfection of form, let us say that there are very many
Greek vases and pots which are _bad_, _common_, _vulgar_. So that no
buyer, no student, must admire with his eyes shut. Hardly any
considerable collection is without these bad things. Therefore, whoever
seizes upon a Greek vase with the belief that it is beautiful because it
is Greek, may wake some day to dash his god to pieces as false.
[Illustration: FIG. 37.--_Amphora, from the Louvre._]
Let us guard, too, against another chance for disappointment. Nearly all
the best vases extant have lain for centuries underground; they have
lost the freshness and fineness of their polish; their coloring is often
defaced; they are, perhaps, scratched or chipped. Seeing these rather
dilapidated examples of the fictile art with eyes of extravagant
expectation, one may feel disappointment or disgust. But let him look on
till he sees and feels the subtile springing lines which shot from the
brain of the potter, and inspired his hand to shape the vase.
[Illustration: FIG. 38.--_Amphora._]
As to the age of the Greek vases there are some evidences. The Greek
poet Pindar, who lived between 520 and 440 B. C., describes the amphoræ,
those painted vases which were given as prizes at the Panathenaic
festivals (see Fig. 36), and they are spoken of by Aristophanes, Strabo,
and others.[3]
Many attempts have been made to classify the works of the Greek potters,
and the result is of some value, though a considerable degree of
vagueness must attach to such as cannot be fixed by any signature or by
the subject. Demmin,[4] Brongniart,[5] Birch, and others, have attempted
classifications. We give here a sketch of that of the last as, on the
whole, the most simple and probable; the writer follows Gerhard:
1. The "Ancient" or "Archaic" style, from B. C. 700 to 450.
2. The "Fine Style" from B. C. 450 to 328. The best were during the time
of Phidias.
3. The Decadence, from B. C. 228 to the end of the Social Wars, B. C.
87. This includes all made in Italy down to the time of Augustus, at
which period most of the towns and works in "Magna Græcia" and the south
of Italy had been destroyed.
To the first or Archaic period are attributed the vases with yellow
ground, having brown and maroon figures, mostly hatchings, flowers, or
rude representations of animals, such as the goat, the pig, the stork,
etc., etc. Whenever the human figure appears on the vases of this period
it is shorter and less graceful than that on later work.
The next period is likely to show the figures in yellow upon black
ground; the designs here are more beautiful; the subjects are
mythological, historical, and poetical, and the human figures often have
the grace and beauty which mark the best period of Grecian art.
The Decadence is marked by coarser work, less purity of form, and
grosser and clumsier designs.
The paste or clay at times approaches the hardness of "terra-cotta;" at
others it is so soft as to be scratched with a knife, and is easily
broken. Its color varies: the earlier or Archaic period is mostly of a
pale lemon-color; the clay used at Athens and Melos was a pale red; and
in the best period of Greece the color becomes a warm orange; while
those found in Italy usually called Etruscan are always of a dull,
rather pale, red. Upon these grounds figures were painted in black,
brown, yellow, and red.
[Illustration: FIG. 39.--_Amphora._]
Perspective those true artists did not strive after. The Greeks sketched
in their designs in clean lines, and colored them with flat color,
touching the muscles and articulations here and there to bring out more
fully the action; but to rival the painter upon his canvas, that was not
attempted upon pottery. It seems desirable to give some notion, as well
as can be done in black-and-white, of what the earlier vases were like;
and we, therefore, transcribe here some examples given by Birch, which
show, not only the style of the decoration, but the forms, of the
Archaic period (see Fig. 31).
The animals shown are rude and clumsy, and are arranged in bands, which
are sown with flower-shapes without order or meaning. The forms, too,
of the pots themselves, especially the two largest, are wholly lacking
in that fine, subtile grace which marks them during the time of the
"Fine Style." That the Art of Greece was not born full-grown and perfect
like the goddess Minerva is certain; but that it grew and grew fast to
its perfectness in that most keen and cunning Greek brain is also
certain.
The time of the "Fine Style" was the time of Pericles, of Aspasia, of
Æschylus, of Phidias; the time when the most beautiful of the beautiful
Greek temples was built on the Acropolis sacred to Minerva; when
sculpture, painting, poetry, and architecture, reached their height;
when the human form and the human face arrived at such a divine beauty
as they had never reached since the days of paradise, and have not again
reached. In this wonderful time the Greek vase was born into its perfect
form.
Some peculiarities of the old or Archaic style, after it passed the
simple method of decoration already described, and when it began to
treat the human figure, are thus specified by Mr. Birch: "The faces of
the females are white to indicate superior delicacy of complexion, and
the pupils of their eyes, which are more elongated than those of the
male figures, are red. The eyes of the men are engraved and of a form
inclining to oval, the pupils circular. The eyes of the women are
sometimes made like those of men, especially on those vases on which the
faces are colored black upon a white ground. The forms are rather full
and muscular, the noses long, the eyes oblique and in profile, the pupil
as if seen in front, the extremities long and not carefully finished,
the outlines rigid, the attitudes _à plomb_, the knees and elbows
rectangular, the draperies stiff, and describing perpendicular, angular,
and precise oval lines. The faces are generally in profile, full faces
being very rare."
We quote again as to the work upon the Fine style: "In this the figures
are still red, and the black grounds are occasionally very dark and
lustrous. The ornaments are in white, and so are the letters. The
figures have lost that hardness which at first characterized them; the
eyes are no longer represented oblique and in profile; the extremities
are finished with greater care, the chin and nose are more rounded, and
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--_Krater (Vase Campanienne), from the Louvre._]
have lost the extreme elongation of the earlier school. The limbs are
fuller and thicker, the faces noble, the hair of the head and beard
treated with greater breadth and mass, as in the style of the painter
Zeuxis, who gave more flesh to his figures, in order to make them appear
of greater breadth and more grandiose, adopting the ideas of Homer, who
represents even his females of large proportions. The great charm of
these designs is the beauty of the composition and the more perfect
proportion of the figures. The head is oval, three-quarters of which are
comprised from the chin to the ear, thus affording a guide to its
proportions, which are far superior to those of the previous figures.
The disproportionate shape of the limbs disappears, and the countenance
assumes its natural form and expression. The folds of the drapery, too,
are freer, and the attitudes have lost their ancient rigidity. The
figures are generally large, and arranged in groups of two or three on
each side, occupying about two-thirds of the height of the vase."
The design we have given to illustrate in some degree the "Fine Style"
is the "Departure of Achilles" (Fig. 32), taken from a vase in the
Louvre.
In our modern time it has come to pass that men worship strength, power,
words, gold, brass--everything but beauty. They care little to have
beautiful things about them, less to be beautiful themselves, to create
beautiful children, or to do beautiful work. And what is the result?
Often they are as unlovely in their souls as in their persons; and so,
while we boast of great cities, and long railways, and amazing
cotton-mills, we boast not of beautiful men who make beautiful work.
Perfection tends to perfection, and ugliness to ugliness. Therefore, let
the perfect man and the perfect woman marry, that thus we may have the
perfect race once more. To bring this to pass we must insist upon
perfect form and perfect decoration in all things about us; we must know
beauty and value it. One step to this great end is to study the Greek
vase. The next step is to make every home a temple of art.
What can we not believe of such a house as that of Aspasia in Athens,
when she was virtually the wife of Pericles in the best period of
Greece? That it was graced surely by works of divinest beauty; that
these exquisite vases which we are praising stood upon her shelves,
graced her pedestals, and adorned the corners specially made for their
reception. We may believe that the potters themselves presented their
beautiful work to the most distinguished woman of all Greece; that the
victor in the Panathenaic games should ask a place for his prize in the
atmosphere of light and learning which surrounded this remarkable woman.
The shapes and uses of the Greek vases, cups, jugs, etc., etc., are
many. We mention here those most known as follows: for holding oil,
wine, etc., etc., _amphora_, _pelice_, _stamnos_; for carrying water,
etc., _hydria_, _kalpis_, or _calpis_; for mixing wine and water, etc.,
_krater_, _oxybaphon_, _kelebe_; for pouring water, wine, etc.,
_oenochoe_, _cruche_, or _kruche_, _olpe_, _prochoos_; for cups and
drinking-vessels, _cylix_, or _kylix_, _kantharos_, _kyathos_, _rhyton_,
_skyphos_, _phiale_, etc., etc.; for perfumes, ointments, etc.,
_lekythos_, or _lecythos_, _alabastron_, _cotyle_, or _kotyle_,
_aryballos_, etc.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--_Hydria._]
The vases most known are these:
The _amphora_ (Figs. 36, 37, 38, 39), a name applied to vases with two
handles, sometimes with a pointed base to thrust into the ground or to
be set into a tripod; great numbers of these exist, and in various
shapes, some of which will appear in our illustrations.
The _amphoræ_ were used to hold wine, oil, wheat, and a great variety of
other articles.
The _hydria_ (Figs. 41 and 42) and _kalpis_ were used to carry water.
The former has one handle.
The _krater_ or _crater_ (Fig. 40) was a large, open-mouthed vessel used
for mixing wine with water.
The _cruche_ (Fig. 43) and _oeochoe_ were jugs or pitchers used to pour
liquids at the symposia.
The _kylix_ or _cylix_ (Figs. 33 and 34), the _rhyton_ (Fig. 35), and
the _kyathos_, were drinking-cups used at feasts.
The _lekythos_, and _kotyle_ and _alabastron_, were used for perfumes,
pomatums, and other such luxuries for the bath and the toilet; and we
may believe, from the number of these found, that woman in those antique
days was careful to enhance her charms.
[Illustration: FIG. 42.--_Hydria._]
We give two examples of the cylix or kylix used for a drinking-cup,
which always carried two handles. The first (Fig. 33) is of the earliest
period, and is more severe than the last. It is ornamented with the
Greek fret, with zigzags or chevrons, etc., etc., of simple design.
The other (Fig. 34) is more graceful and finished in form, and has a
more elaborate design, which, however, seems to me quite behind the work
found on the cups of the "Fine Style."
[Illustration: FIG. 43.--_Vase for Libations._]
We give some particulars of the Greek vases, mostly from the collections
of the Louvre at Paris.
Some of the AMPHORÆ were designed for particular uses; as, for example,
for prizes to the victors of the public games (Fig. 36). The fashion
which prevails with us of giving cups for prizes at our races, etc.
(usually pieces of silver), is a fashion which began with the Greeks,
and has continued till to-day.
Sometimes these vases were filled with oil made from the olive blessed
by Minerva. We may well believe such amphoræ so won were highly valued;
and this will explain the curious history of the one now in the Museum
of the Louvre.
In 1827 this good find came to light: "They recently found at Capoue the
vase given to the victor at the athletic games at Athens in the year 332
before Christ. Beside the vase lay the skeleton of the victor, the
Athenian himself, as was supposed. The vase is of clay covered with
paintings, showing upon one side the goddess Pallas Athene (Fig. 36)
launching a javelin; on the other side is a group of wrestlers, a young
man who is a looker-on, a judge, and an old man holding a wand. At the
top is found the name of the ruler of Athens in the year 332 B. C., and
the words '_Prize given at Athens_.'" The victor is vanquished, his name
and fame are forgot, but the vase is perfect after the lapse of
twenty-two centuries.
The vase next presented (Fig. 37) is an amphora decorated with
equestrian figures, marked by that archaic stiffness which some value.
Its height is put by Figuier at thirty-seven centimetres--about fifteen
inches. The color is yellowish; it is shaped with much care; the black
varnish is brilliant, and is laid upon the yellow body; the outlines are
incised to limit the figures; and the parts in relief are of a rusty red
and unpolished.
The great amphora (Fig. 38) is in the Louvre Museum, and is one of the
most perfect known. We see this form, as well as many others of the
Greek amphora, in all modern work. The clay is yellowish, and is covered
with a deep black. The figures are reserved on the yellow and are well
brought out by the black. The simplicity and dignity of this vase can
hardly be excelled, and they are in striking contrast with the
over-decorated things, so many of which have been made at Sèvres and
Meissen. The great virtue of reticence was known and observed among the
Greek artists.
The next (Fig. 39) is of a more uncommon form than the others, in its
swelling out at the base. The handles, too, are rare, and the twisting
together at the top quite peculiar.
The great vase KRATER (Fig. 40), called "Campanienne," is some fifteen
inches in height, and is perfect in form and decoration. The figures are
painted in black upon its surface. They have been found in great numbers
in various parts of Italy.
The hydria (Figs. 41 and 42) is a water-jug; another term which is used
for the same vessel is _kalpis_, but the latter has two handles. These
vary much in form, decoration, and beauty. The one (Fig. 41) has a black
ground with red figures; the other (Fig. 42) is just the reverse.
[Illustration: FIG. 44.--_Lekythos._]
The _cruche_ or vase shown in Fig. 43 is supposed to have been used for
libations when sacrifices were made to the gods. The neck and mouth are
peculiar. This example has a red body covered with a black varnish, the
designs showing the red.
The LEKYTHOS is a sort of cylindrical amphora, with a straight neck and
a single handle. This beautiful vase was made to contain perfumes and
unguents, which were largely in use.
The figure (44) here given is a perfect example of this delicate vase,
and is painted with colored clays, which are fixed to the body of the
vase by heat, and are, therefore, indestructible.
[Illustration: FIG. 45.--_Pot for Infusion._]
A pot for infusion (Fig. 45) is easily understood. It is a Greek
ancestor to our teapot, and is marked by that elegance of form which
appears in much of the work of the Grecian potters.
The curious cup (Fig. 46) called a COUTHON is about eight inches in
diameter. Our illustration shows at A the top of the cup with the open
centre, while at B and C may be seen the peculiar involuted form. Just
what uses this could have been put to does not appear. It is more an
object of curiosity and gracefulness than of use. Just in what way such
a pot can have been turned is not plain to the uninitiated soul.
The CUP OF ARCESILAUS (shown in Figs. 47 and 48) is one of the most
graceful and beautiful things which has come down to us from the Greeks.
It is supposed to date back to the time of Pindar, some 500 years before
Christ. The cup is now to be seen in the collection of the Rue de
Richelieu in Paris; it was found in Etruria, but was made by a potter of
Cyrene. It is discovered that at this African city was a great pottery
for the making of Greek vases, out of which have come some of the most
perfect found; among them this one. So far had the art and culture of
the Greeks spread even then. The cup is about thirteen inches in
diameter. Its name comes from the King of Cyrenaica, whose glories were
sung by Pindar. The clay is very fine, and is of a delicate red; and
this has been almost hidden by a black which appears solidly at the
handles and foot. The design is put on with a colored clay or _engobe_
of a yellowish-white, which is fixed by the fire; and it is believed
that it must have passed through the furnace some three times.
The picture (Fig. 48) is curious and interesting. The king is shown
sitting on the deck of a vessel afloat, holding his sceptre. Before him
his servants are weighing baskets of merchandise, and below the deck
others are seen carrying away the baskets into the hold. Now, what is
this they are weighing and carrying away?
[Illustration: FIG. 46.--_A Couthon._]
M. de Witte, in making his catalogue, decides that the Greek word near
the manager who is pointing to the scales means _silphium_ or
_asafoetida_: the most odious of flavors to us, but one which still
provokes delicious titillations in some Orientals. Altogether, we get a
glimpse of life in this early Pindaric time; we see that a king then was
not a mere figure-head, but a real king who oversaw his cargoes, and
probably loved asafoetida, and was fond of making money, as some of
our sovereigns are to-day.
The _number_ of these vases, cups, etc., now existing in Europe is very
great--at least 20,000, and some experts make the number as high as
70,000. The best-known collections are--at Naples in the Museo
Borbonico, 2,000; in the Vatican at Rome, 1,000; at Florence, 700; at
Turin, 500; at Vienna, 300; at Berlin, 1,690; at Munich, 1,700; at
Dresden, 200; at Carlsruhe, 200; at Paris, the Louvre, 1,500;
Bibliothèque Nationale, 500; at London, British Museum, 2,600. There are
also a great many in private collections throughout the world.
What the keen and artistic mind wants to know is, not only what fine
work was done by the Greeks, but why they did it--what, indeed, made
that life more beautiful than any we find in all the earlier histories
of man.
Through the wrecks and convulsions of time this crowd of delicate,
perishable things still exists; what vast numbers must have been made
and destroyed in the varying populations of Greece, Rome, Tyre,
Carthage, and wherever Grecian civilizations and tastes made their way,
it is not easy for the mind to compass. And we must remember that these
things we now describe were not in every man's hand; they were in a good
degree for the rich and well-to-do. No slave (and slaves then abounded)
used a _kylix_ from which to drink his wine, nor an _oenochoe_ from which
to pour it.
That vases and cups were used and made especially as tokens of affection
to be placed in the tombs, we know; that they were fashioned and painted
for prizes at the Panathenaic games of Greece, we know; and that they
were used in many ways in the symposia and feasts, we also know; and the
numbers made must have been nigh countless. No satisfactory explanation
of this profusion has so far been hit upon.
The potteries, of course, must have been many; for Brongniart cites in
Greece proper twelve now known cities where vases were made; in Italy,
some fourteen; and we know, also, that they were made in most
[Illustration: FIG. 47.--_Cup of Arcesilaus, View of the Outside._]
of the colonies where Greek customs stamped themselves. The demand for
all this product was, of course, equal to the supply. While we know that
Greek civilizations had reached a high place, and that man, physically
and intellectually, had come nigh to perfection, _woman_ had not kept
pace with him. The home then was not what we now make it, or attempt to,
a temple in which all of comfort, all of luxury, all of beauty, are
gathered. The Greek house, even in Athens, was rarely, large; the
principal _salons_ for the feasts were used only by men, for the ladies
of the house did not appear at those times. The women's apartments were
more secluded, and were not used for show; we should not, therefore,
expect them to be _filled_ with objects of art and ornament, though they
would not, of course, be excluded. That there should be, as we have
shown there was, a great production of articles devoted to the tastes of
the fairer sex is easy to understand, and for them, as well as for men,
were made the beautiful _lekythoi_, the _alabastron_, and other
articles, for perfumes, for the toilet, and the bath; for these we can
account. The life of the married woman was not then passed in public and
out-of-doors as it now has come to be; she was not the central or only
or principal figure around which society revolved; nor did the social or
intellectual, the artistic or literary life find its centre or its
applause with her. That she frequented the theatres with men is not
believed, though she had her own opportunities for the indulgence of
this taste; and it seems probable that some representations--as the
tragedies--were open for both men and women. Her life partook of the
seclusion which stamped the Asiatic courts. She had many duties and
occupations; for the wife, with her maidens or her slaves, not only must
prepare and serve the food, she must also spin and weave and make the
garments for her household.
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--_Cup of Arcesilaus, View of the Inside._]
The care and education of children, the supervision of the house and the
slaves, the production of stuffs and garments, of perfumes and unguents,
gave necessary occupations in great profusion, and such as would
alleviate _ennui_--such as would put amusements into a second rather
than a first place in her heart.
But the truth is that her life was so dull, so devoid of exciting cares,
that many women, and among them some of the most beautiful, most witty,
and most cultivated of Greece, preferred the seductive and exciting
dangers of the life of the _hetaira_ to the safe and frigid
respectability and dullness of the married wife.
[Illustration: FIG. 49.--_Etruscan Vase._]
That dress was a matter of important thought with woman there also, is
beyond doubt; and the textures of the _chitons_ and _himations_, the
proper colors of their bands and their girdles, caused much perplexity
to the beautiful Greek maiden, as they have to the beautiful American of
to-day. But the Greek seems to have escaped one great misery and
mystery--_her fashions did not change_; no staff of designing men was
working with swift brain, hand, and pencil, in Athens or Corinth, to
perplex her delicate mind with fashion-books, thus forcing her into
exquisite torture, and keeping her there. The pictures upon the vases
continuing through many centuries, show no very marked changes in dress.
Was woman, then, supremely happy? Who can say! Besides dress, there can
be no question, from the large numbers of perfume-bottles and vases of
clay, as well as from the quantity of those of glass found by Cesnola in
his excavations, that a very great degree of luxury, if not of dandyism,
was reached by the women as well as the men in that "good old day of
Greece." We know something of the luxury, the lavish daintiness of
Alcibiades and his friends, but very little of that of their wives.
There was, however, an evil thing in Greece, and one which the Greek
wife felt strongly, keenly--it was the _hetairai_, the _demi-monde_ of
the great cities. Nowhere except in England and America has the virtue
of married woman been held at so extreme and exalted a height, nowhere
has its sale been lowered to such a depth, as in Athens.
Among the _hetairai_ of Athens and Corinth were found the most
beautiful, the most brilliant, and the most highly-cultivated women of
Greece; to them every attraction was of inestimable value, and whatever
would charm men was to be sought and seized. That among them were women
of great mental gifts, of much political knowledge, of highly-cultivated
artistic perceptions, we have every reason to believe; that the
_hetairai_ made their houses as attractive as possible we may also
believe; and in them, we do not doubt, were found some of the best
examples of the art of Greece outside the temples and the gymnasia. Here
we may suppose that the fine vases found appreciative recipients, as
well as appreciative admirers among men. That all who sold their charms
were what we term "abandoned" is not true; they did not so consider
themselves, and were not so esteemed among the men or women of Greece;
that some of them, many of them, became so, is beyond doubt true. But
among them some (how many who can tell?) were cultivated, interesting,
able, there is no doubt; and that they continued so. It was long the
fashion to suppose and to say that the poetess Sappho, and the
politician Aspasia, were courtesans, which hardly any man will now
maintain. As to the former less is known, but Aspasia, though not
legally married to Pericles (as she could not be), was virtually his
wife and partner through all his life, in his schemes for governing,
exalting, and beautifying Athens. Her house then was the most beautiful,
the most complete, and the most attractive, in Athens; and to it
resorted the most noted statesmen, rhetoricians, philosophers, wits, and
artists, of that most remarkable city and time.
[Illustration: FIG. 50.--_Etruscan Vase._]
It is a misfortune to us that no Greek house of the time of
[Illustration: FIG. 51.--_Etruscan Vase._]
Pericles, the perfect day of a most remarkable and highly-æsthetic
civilization, remains; either its stone-walls, or in pictures on its
temple-walls or on its vases. The great catastrophe which overwhelmed
Herculaneum and Pompeii has secured to us the means of knowing how the
luxurious Roman lived in those little seaside cities eighteen hundred
years ago; a time when Cæsar was hardly dead, and Jesus almost unknown.
Every house in Athens and in Corinth, in Samos and in Melos, has been
swept away by the besom of war or the feathered wing of Time. We know
what we do know from the verses of the poets or the allusions of the
playwrights, and that is all; but from these we gather that the house or
home was a place rather for the woman than for the man; that in it the
woman, though not exactly a prisoner as in the harems of the Asiatic
kings, was expected to stay and to find "her sphere." The porter sat at
the door of the house, and when the woman walked forth she went
accompanied by her slave, and it was known for what she went.
The life of the Greek man was essentially and in his best hours outside
his own house. By the Greek man we now mean the upper or more wealthy
classes; all these had their work done by slaves. He went forth in the
early morning to visit the theatres, where he was entertained with the
dramas of Æschylus, of Euripides, of Aristophanes; he breakfasted; he
visited the markets; he went to the bath; to the hairdresser; he
conversed in the porticoes; he frequented the gymnasia, where he could
talk or listen, where he could exercise and enjoy his body, where
beautiful bodies and philosophic tongues found free play and ample room.
Everything of politics, of poetry, of art, of scandal, was a delight to
the keen and active intellect of the Greek; as in St. Paul's day, he was
eager to hear or see some new thing: and when such a ruler as Pericles
had grasped the purse and the sword, and had gathered together in the
small city of Athens all the sculptures, all the poetry, all the
eloquence, all the pictures, all the vases, to adorn and glorify it, the
Greek man may be said--using our expressive American phrase--"to have
had a good time!"--as good as he has been able yet to see in the long
history of the race.
[Illustration: FIG. 52.--_Etruscan Vase._]
Knowing as much as we do of the life of the Greek man and the Greek
woman, need we be surprised that the rather sharp-tempered Xantippe,
wife of that delightful vagabond and philosopher, Socrates--he who
puzzled the too conscious sophists and pleased the simpler people, who
loved the true and hated the false; he who lived for wisdom and not for
power; who cared much for mind and less for money; who basked in the
sunshine of the porticoes and pined in the shadows of his own
house--need we be surprised that this wife of his was driven to go forth
at times to seek her vagrant lord in the throng of the market-place or
the excitements of the Academy, and to lead him thence to the place of
his wife and children? Need we be surprised that her speech was then
unmelodious, unconjugal, and that she became a sport and by-word for the
wicked wits of that brilliant city?
[Illustration: FIG. 53.--_Etruscan Vase._]
But with his faults Socrates had the great virtues of serenity and
patience, always indispensable in the married man, at least.
If the vases had only preserved for us the portraits of Xantippe and
Socrates, or even of the room they lived in, how much would we thank
them! As to the _pictures_ upon the vases, the best of them seem to be
copied or adapted by the vase-painters from pictures of the best artists
of Greece, made to illustrate the worship or the doings of the gods, the
great deeds of the heroes, the feats at games, the triumphs at the
feasts, etc., etc. Many of these are but carelessly, even poorly, put
upon the vases; the _best_ are those we must look for to admire, to
enjoy, and to emulate.
The _tub of Diogenes_, there is reason to believe, was a great earthen
vase or pot--the PITHOS. These were built up of clay by the Greeks by
hand around a frame, and were afterward baked. As they sometimes reached
the dimensions of over three feet in diameter and six or seven feet in
height, it is plain that they could not be turned upon the potter's
wheel. It is easy, too, to understand what an excellent shelter such a
pot would make for such a cynical philosopher as Diogenes, who needed a
very cheap rent. But if a wicked boy _should_ throw a cruel stone some
fine evening, striking the pot in a weak spot, the rent might end in a
convulsion and ruin.
ETRUSCAN VASES.--The "_Etruscan vase_" not being what we have here
described and figured as the "Greek vase," it remains to say briefly
that the vases and pots made by the Etruscans before the coming of the
Greek potters were quite different; ruder and less fine in form and in
decoration. Indeed, it is not likely that the painted vase found in
Italy, known as the Greek vase, was ever the work of the Etruscan
workmen. The Etruscan pottery was thicker, less ornamental, and it
indicates a different race and lower æsthetic development. In the Museum
of Art at Boston is now placed a collection of Etruscan work which is
said to be unique in this country as well as in England. In this are a
number of vases which are ornamented with heads and figures in relief,
not sharp and fine; these are wholly covered with a black color. A few
which are painted are quite different and inferior to the work of the
Greeks. The collection was secured in Italy by Mr. J. J. Dixwell, who
has been so good as to present it to the museum. Figs. 49, 50, 51, 52,
53, are examples of some of the vases in the Museum of the Louvre, which
present the general style and character of this work; they show clearly
how much the real Etruscan vase differs from the true Greek vase.
CHAPTER III.
UNGLAZED POTTERY AT THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1876.
Unglazed Water-Colors.--Clay Sketches.--Japanese Clay
Figures.--Spanish Pots.--Italian Peasant
Pottery.--Egyptian.--Turkish.--Mexican.--Watcombe
Terra-cotta.--Copenhagen Pottery.
The reports of the judges have not yet appeared, so that we do not and
cannot know what their awards may be. But as so many persons who saw and
judged for themselves may never see these reports, it may therefore
serve to remind them of many things there if I put down here my own
notes of what I saw and admired.
My notes do not cover the whole ground, by any means, but I think they
touch upon the best examples of the unglazed work, of which, however,
the quantity in no degree equaled that of the glazed pottery or faience;
and, indeed, it could not, because for most of the uses of life it is
valueless. The glazed pots are of course much stronger, and, for
household uses, have almost entirely supplanted the other. Unglazed pots
and pans are still in common domestic use, but they have a glaze on the
_inside_ which renders them capable of holding liquids. Unglazed vessels
are much used along the shores of the Mediterranean for the purpose of
cooling water, the percolation and evaporation from the surface bringing
the water to a delicious coolness, which is grateful to the parched
palate; indeed, it is much more wholesome than the intense coldness
created by the use of ice. Many a dyspeptic stomach with us would
gladden if refreshed with the crisp water produced by the Spanish or
Egyptian coolers, which are now made feverish with the icy American
draughts poured into them.
In Paris are still made many small figures in unglazed clay, some of
which are full of artistic effects; they are sketches in clay, and are
valuable when they are such. A great many are made at some of the
potteries in England, which are useless as works of art, and are useful
only as cheap decorations. Some of them are well moulded, and are
pleasing. I noticed none of these at the Exhibition, though it is likely
they were represented there.
A very fine example of this sort of unglazed figure-work was to be seen
in a case in the Japanese collection sent by Kiriu Kosko Kuwaisha. It
was a much higher class of work than the Peruvian, of which an
illustration is given at page 19, and in its way could hardly be
excelled. The figure was about twelve inches high, and seemed to be an
intense embodiment of Japanese jollity; its half-shut eyes, lolling
tongue, and relaxed figure, told the story perfectly. My Japanese guide,
philosopher, and friend, did not consider it in any way a god, though it
was so like the Chinese Poutai, god of content, that one wondered. If it
indeed had been a domestic god, our keen Japanese gentleman would not
have been likely to urge that view to us, who have less regard for other
people's gods even than for our own.
Not far from the Japanese exhibit was to be seen in the Spanish
collection a pyramid of unglazed pottery, nearly or quite all of a
light-buff color. It had this value, that it was such as is in use
to-day in the houses of the common people; and that is about all we can
say for it. The whole of it has been bought for the Pennsylvania School
of Art. Why they should want a hundred pieces of this work one may well
be at a loss to know, unless it is true that to own what nobody else has
is always a pleasure.
Throughout the southern countries of Europe, in Spain, France, Italy,
Greece, Turkey, and on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, this
kind of pottery is made and used, and in some cases it has much merit in
its forms; when decorated, it often reaches a _naïve_ and fascinating
kind of art.
Some very pretty, simple, and original pieces of this sort of pottery
have been brought to us from time to time from Naples, though I have
never seen any for sale. I learn from one of the Castellanis that in
many places of Italy this sort of work is made to-day, much of it for
decorative purposes. At some of them vases and other vessels which are
distinctly traditions derived from the Greek potters of a thousand years
ago are still made; at others are made pots and vases, cups and
_bénitiers_, which have sprung out of the simple artistic feeling of the
potters themselves, and which have that flavor of genuineness which
cannot be too much encouraged. The tendency everywhere is to _copy_
something; let us, as far as we can, buy the real and disparage the
copy. A hundred pieces of this peasant pottery were sent me a few years
ago, but they were wrecked upon the "vexed Bermoöthes," and are lying at
the bottom of the sea.
A few pieces of a light-gray body in the Egyptian collection were
excellent both in form and in their many-colored decoration. These
pieces were like, but better than, most of that which comes out from
Africa through Tangier, of which we saw none in the Main Building, but
learned that there was a collection in the Tunisian Building. Many good
pieces of this barbaric pottery are in the country, though most of the
specimens are glazed. These Egyptian pots have this vast merit, that
they have come from the personal wants and the depths of the moral
consciousness of the Egyptians themselves; from potters who know no
language, no country, and no art, but their own; and therefore they are
in no way imitations of what has been done in France, or England, or
Boston.
The dark-red terra-cotta ware from Egypt was mostly in small pieces, but
was excellent in its modeling and finish; and it was satisfactory to see
that it was much bought by our people. This clay, with its polished
surface, is peculiar to Egypt; at least we see it nowhere else.
This red Egyptian ware, is much like the red Roman ware often called
Samian, which has been spoken of in a preceding chapter. Some larger
pieces have been brought by private parties from Egypt, which have much
merit in form, as well as in incised decoration.
The Turks sent a few examples of their simple pottery, some of it
unglazed, and some covered with a deep-green glaze, which were simply
what they pretended to be. Their polychrome decoration was also good,
but not so good as the Egyptian.
Mexico, too, sent a small collection of this sort of work, which
[Illustration: FIG. 54.--_Danish Pottery._]
smacked yet of the Aztec races, but too little of it to be of much use.
A few glazed pots painted in the native fashion were excellent, and were
bought up quickly, because they suggested Montezuma and his brown
people, who have been wholly consumed by the greedy whites. The belief
of Señor Alejandro Cassarin, the potter or dealer who sent from Mexico,
evidently was that this native spontaneous pottery, which doubtless is
yet to be found, in out-of-the-way places, is not a thing to be proud
of--at least, it is not to be sent to us; that what we want is a very
poor imitation of European porcelain. Nor is such a delusion his alone.
Of terra-cotta work in red and in buff there was a good show, mainly
from England and Denmark. The clay, the modeling, and the finish, were
quite perfect in many of these. The Watcombe people, in England, had
already reached perfection in the color and texture of their clay; and
the Greek vases, as well as jugs, ewers, and a variety of things--their
own designs--could not have been bettered some three years ago. They
were then satisfied to insure a simplicity which touched perfection. In
their exhibit at Philadelphia it was clear that they are no longer
satisfied with this, or that a jaded taste needs excitement. The work
sent us constantly says, "We are trying to do something new and
surprising, if nothing better than before." The principal novelty was
the combining of two colors of clay in the same pot; as, for example, a
lighter body with a darker red for the handles, mouldings, and
ornaments. Dignity and repose were thus lost, and no new pleasure was
supplied. We felt sure that this would not last. And then, when bands of
color or polychrome decoration are used on the fine red clay, they
nearly always do harm; and the inevitable tendency to overdo cannot be
restrained. Their modeled figures seemed to have neither the delicacy of
the parian nor the sketchy freedom of some of the French designers. The
color of the clay and the finish of the Watcombe terra-cotta vases are
superior to any I have ever seen.
Some years ago the Copenhagen potters made a very considerable success
in their revival of the Greek vase, both plain and painted in black,
with Greek figures of horses, warriors, women, etc. (Fig. 54). These
have had for the last ten years a large sale; and as we cannot have the
real Greek vases because of their scarcity and price, it is well to have
some examples so well copied as these are. But there is a limit to one's
capacity for copies of Greek vases, and it seems positive that we have
reached it. We hope so. Ipsen's widow sent us some of the yellow vases
and pots, most delicately and delightfully painted with the lotus and
other Egyptian designs, which for subtilty of color and precision of
touch cannot be surpassed. These we were glad to see our people buying,
and not the other.
Among much that was commonplace, there were many examples of good work
in the department of unglazed pottery. It would have been a great
satisfaction to have met with more which showed _courage_ and
_freshness_ of design. While the public are not so responsive to these
as one could wish, there is still enough to encourage potters and
designers in this direction, if they will only believe it.
CHAPTER IV.
GLAZED POTTERY.--GRÈS DE FLANDRE, FRENCH, GERMAN, ETC.
Definition of Glaze.--Varnish.--Enamel in Egypt, Babylon.--The
Arabs and the Moors.--Grès de Flandre.--Cologne, Regensburg,
Baireuth, Neuwied, Grenzhausen,
Coblentz.--Holland.--Beauvais.--Flanders.--Apostle-Mugs.
--Graybeards.--"Bellarmines."--"Pottle-Pots."--Modern
Work.--Doulton Stone-ware.--Early German Stone-ware at
Breslau.--Hirschvogel.--Nuremberg.
Before saying anything about the various styles of glazed pottery, it
may be well to give the definitions of glaze, as presented by Marryatt,
thus:
"GLAZE (_Glauçure_, _Vernis_, Fr.).--The composition used for coating
pottery is composed chiefly of lead and silex. That for porcelain is
analogous to flint-glass (whence the derivation _glassing_ or
_glazing_). In fact, this term may be applied to any substance that
covers the surface of the piece; as, for instance, that produced by the
decomposition of salt on stone-ware. M. Brongniart classes the different
kinds of glazing, or vitreous substances with which pottery is covered
when finished, into three kinds:
"'_Varnish._--Every vitrifiable substance, transparent and plumbiferous,
which melts at low temperature, generally inferior to that required for
the baking of the paste: common pottery, fine earthen-ware.
"'_Enamel._--A vitrifiable substance, opaque, generally stanniferous
(tin): majolica and common earthen-ware.
"'_Couverte._--A vitrifiable substance, earthy, which melts at a high
temperature equal to that of the baking of the paste: hard porcelain,
some stone-wares....'
"The mark caused by the absence of glaze is very apparent in Oriental
porcelain, the bottom edge being rough and sandy. This defective
appearance is obviated in Europe by supporting the piece upon a tripod
with very small points (_prenettes_, Fr.). The three ugly marks upon old
Chelsea china are caused by the clumsy tripod which was employed."
The use of glaze and of tin to form the glaze or enamel seems to have
been known to the Chinese beyond the time when Occidental records were
kept. It appears, according to Sir Gardiner Wilkinson and Mr. Samuel
Birch, that very early indeed the Egyptian potters knew the use of the
siliceous glaze, composed of sand and potash or soda; and also that
small sepulchral figures have been found, coated with enamels made from
oxides of tin or copper, dating as far back as the sixth dynasty (B. C.
3703). In the museums of Europe are preserved tiles and bricks taken
from the temples or palaces of Egypt and Babylon, and they must have
been largely used long before our historical time. These glazed bricks
are supposed to date back twenty-five hundred years before our era.
Mr. Birch, in his "History of Ancient Pottery," says that the use of
these bricks was probably learned by the Assyrians from the Egyptians,
"who at a very early period had inlaid in this manner the chamber of the
Pyramid at Saqquara."
He says: "The glazed or enameled bricks from Nimrúd are of the usual
kiln-dried kind, measuring thirteen and a half inches square, and about
four and a half inches thick. They were laid in rows horizontally above
the slates of sculpture of the Mosul marble, and seem to have been
employed in the construction of cornices. They are glazed on one of the
narrow sides or edges only, having on this edge various patterns,
chiefly of an architectural nature, such as guilloche or chain
ornaments, bands of palmettes or helices, and fleurettes or flowers of
many petals. The colors employed were blue, black, yellow, red, and
white. The glaze, which is much decomposed, easily exfoliates, and the
colors have lost much of their freshness. It would appear that patterns
of tolerably large size were executed in this manner, each brick having
its appropriate portion enameled upon it.... Another brick, found by Mr.
Layard in the earliest palace of Nimrúd, has an horizontal line of
inscription in arrow-headed characters of a darker color, and with
square heads like nails. Its tenor was of the usual purport: 'This is
the great palace of "Asar-aden-pal."' Bricks of this glazed kind were
found chiefly in the space between the great bulls which flanked the
entrances of the chambers. From Nimrúd were also brought corbels of blue
faience, or what has been called porcelain, the under part modeled to
represent the five fingers of the hand."
This much is given to show how the glaze was applied to pottery by the
nations of that very early time. Where they got their knowledge--whether
they discovered it for themselves in their search into the secrets of
Nature, or whether they derived it from the great world of life which
lay beyond in the far East--we do not and cannot know. But why this so
valuable knowledge was not applied universally by those acute peoples to
the utensils of every-day life, and to all which we now call "artistic
pottery," remains a curious question. That it was applied to some
things, we know; for small vases, toys, marbles, etc., etc., have been
found among the Egyptian tombs coated with this enamel; but most of the
pottery found in Egypt is without glaze, which would indicate that what
was in ordinary daily use was unglazed. Examples of this enameled ware
are to be seen in the British and other museums of Europe.
Coming to the Greeks, it is singular that nothing of this enamel-glaze
is found. The inference is, that they had not the knowledge of it, and
that the art must have been lost; for surely so valuable and beautiful
an art, if known, must have been applied by so æsthetic a people as the
Greeks to the uses of life.
Upon the Greek vases, of which so many examples remain, there appears
sometimes to have been used a very thin and very transparent varnish;
but this does not seem to have been a glaze made either of glass, or of
lead, or of tin. If it was a varnish, and not a polish, the
probabilities point to its being a thin wash of soda or potash. This
varnish served to protect the painting, but did not prevent the
percolation of water.
The Greek methods prevailed among the Romans. Among the great numbers of
potters, and the vast production of pottery, the Romans seem not to have
used the glaze. All that remains of their work, found in Gaul, in
Britain, and in other parts of Europe, is the unglazed ware.
The Arabs and the Moors brought into Europe a knowledge of the
stanniferous (tin) glaze, as has been explained more fully elsewhere. To
this keen and most energetic civilization Europe owes its beginnings in
the arts of pottery, as well as in many other things.
The value of the glaze in all the arts of life cannot be estimated. When
the only cooking-utensils were those made of unglazed pottery, the
cooking was of the simplest, if not most insufficient, character.
Indeed, at that time it is not likely that meat was cooked in the pot at
all. In addition to this, the difficulty of making unglazed vessels
capable of holding wine, oil, etc., without wasting them slowly, must
have forbidden those things being kept to such a time as to insure
perfection, not to mention the inevitable loss.
It is likely that such unglazed pots were then painted on the inside
with some resinous substance which in a degree met the difficulty, but
which, at the same time, imparted a flavor to the wine which we cannot
believe to have been delicious.
Between China and the Spanish Moors exist a wide gap and centuries of
time, in which glazed pottery and porcelain intended for the uses of
domestic life seem to have been unknown. And this, too, was among the
Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Romans--nations eager for every good
thing, astute, keen, grasping. Among the remains of Roman art have been
found a few pieces of pottery upon which are traces of the use of a
glaze; but, if it was used at all, it seems to have been almost an
accident--not at all as with us, to complete and perfect the work.
To the Moors and the Moorish civilization of Spain, Europe owes the
knowledge or the introduction of this most valuable art, which has
enabled her to reach such perfection in the making of fictile ware as we
now see and enjoy.
Not only has the glaze (and enamel) given great strength to pottery, and
increased its use to an infinite variety: it has also enabled most
nations, beginning with the Chinese, to add to its beauty, and, indeed,
to develop or create a method of artistic expression which is peculiar
and most interesting. This subject will be treated more fully, in the
progress of this work, in a chapter upon decorating porcelain and
pottery.
After the work of the Moors in Spain, which will be treated in a
separate chapter, one of the earliest applications of the glaze in
Europe was upon a hard sort of _stone-ware_ made at various places along
the Rhine, and in Flanders and Germany. It has come to be known under a
generic title of GRÈS DE FLANDRE, while but little of it was really made
in Flanders. A great centre of its manufacture and sale, as early as the
1300's of our era, was at Cologne; and a more fit name for it would be
Grès de Cologne; still, the usual name is the one the world knows it by.
The body or paste of which this is composed differs from the faiences or
earthen-wares of which we write.
It is harder, heavier, and much more durable. The commoner kinds are
made so by a considerable mixture of siliceous sand; while in the finer
kinds, known as Grès de Flandre, there are mixed with the paste other
clays, such as _terre de pipe_ and _kaolin_. This hard and heavy body
has long been used for common stone-ware jugs and pots made for
every-day use. In China it was and is still used as a body for vases and
dishes, which received a covering or "engobe," and upon that an artistic
finish--such as the crackle-vases, and many others.
The glaze upon what we know as Grès de Flandre was made by using in the
furnace common salt; the fumes of which, combining with the fused silex,
resulted in what is termed the _salt-glaze_. This requires a high degree
of heat, in which no colors will stay except the blue of cobalt, a
brown, and a violet.
The Grès de Flandre, of which we give two illustrations (Figs. 55 and
56), is now well known under that name. Its color is a liquid gray, and
its decoration is made with the blue of cobalt. Some pieces of this ware
are highly and beautifully decorated, as is seen on the fine fountain
now in the museum of the Louvre (Fig. 55). Most of the figures and
reliefs are made with moulds, which have a quaint interest; they were
cut in wood, carefully, often with considerable artistic expression. The
best work of this sort was made in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, and is mostly German.
[Illustration: FIG. 55.--_Grès de Flandre Fountain, Musée du Louvre._]
There were factories at Cologne, at Regensburg, at Baireuth, at Neuwied,
at Grenzhausen, at Coblentz, and at other places along the Rhine. The
same work was also made in Holland, in Flanders, and in Beauvais. Many
pieces of this style of work were decorated with figures of saints, and
other sacred emblems. Some pieces, such as salt-cellars, inkstands, and
candlesticks, were carefully modeled by hand, and have thus an added
interest. I know of but few pieces of this work in our museums, while
those of Europe have made special attempts to secure examples of it; for
it has a peculiar character of its own, and in many cases is delicious
in color and most quaint and artistic in its forms and decoration. Often
coats-of-arms are found impressed upon tankards and bottles and flagons
of this work, and most of these are German. They were evidently
reproduced from the moulds, and sold to others than the persons whose
arms they bore.
[Illustration: FIG. 56.--_Pilgrim-shaped Grès Bottle, in the British
Museum._]
The making of this ware was undoubtedly one step by which Böttcher at
last succeeded in making true porcelain at Dresden.
Fig. 56 is a pilgrim-bottle, bought at the Bernal sale by the British
Museum for eighteen pounds.
At Baireuth were made, in the 1600's, some very curious mugs, called
_Apostle-Mugs_, because the figures of the twelve apostles were worked
in relief around the cup. The clay was a dark-brown, but the dresses of
the figures and the inscriptions were painted in colors. Mr. Frederick
J. Betts, of New York, has one of these interesting bits of work; they
are now hardly ever offered for sale.
[Illustration: FIG. 57.--_Brown Graybeard or Bellarmine._]
The _Graybeards_, or _Longbeards_, or _Bellarmines_, were made largely
in the Low Countries for their own uses, and were exported to England.
We give an illustration (Fig. 57) of one in Mr. Prime's collection.
There is also an excellent one, I believe, in possession of Dr. Breck,
of Springfield, Massachusetts. These were intended for use, and usually
carried from one quart to three gallons. They were always in brown--at
least I have seen none in the gray; but their decoration was sometimes
touched with the violet-color. They are a very handsome and decorative
bottle. The name of "Bellarmine" was given them because, in the
sixteenth century, when these bottles were made and used, the Cardinal
Bellarmin was sent into the Low Countries to counteract the movements of
the pernicious Reformers then so zealously at work there. He was
cordially hated by the Protestants, and received from them his due share
of contumely. Having a short stature and a large stomach, like the
Longbeard bottles, and, as they said, holding like them much vinous or
other liquor, they soon called the bottle a Bellarmine, which name it
bears to this day--so that, indeed, it may be said, the bottle has
immortalized the man.
These bottles were largely in use on the Continent and in England all
through Shakespeare's time, and one was dug up on the site of the
"Boar's Head at Eastcheap." The "pottle-pot," as the bottle was then
called, held about two quarts. In one of the old English plays, Clodpate
says: "Uds-buds, my head begins to turn round; but let's into the house.
'Tis dark, we'll have one Bellarmine more, and then Bonus Nocius."
Sometimes these Graybeards were handsomely mounted, and came to be
ranked high among the household gods. An inventory of the Duke of
Burgundy, made in 1467, speaks of one of them as being decorated with
silver and gold: "Ung hault _Goblet de Terre_ ouvré et chiqueté à ung
visaige d'un heremite, garny au dessus et au dessoubs d'argent doré, et
le couvercle aussi d'argent doré."
Upon the Rhine these stone pots are still made for common uses, and
largely; the same sort of clay is also extensively converted into
seltzer-water bottles. Near Coblentz are several potteries devoted to
this sort of work. At these places, since the great desire for
interesting pottery has sprung up, some very fair copies of the old
_grès_ have been made. At first they were made with considerable care,
and then had _some_ value, showing us, as they did, what this very
quaint and very original pottery was; and they were of value, as we
could not have the originals. But now there is no restraint, and they
are turned out by the ship-load in a slovenly style, and are to be seen
in every shop-window. Fortunately, they do not pretend to be the _real_
thing; and, fortunately, they will have but a short existence, as they
do not grow out of any true want or true use.
DOULTON STONE-WARE.--On the other hand has sprung up at Lambeth,
England, in the potteries of the Doultons, stone-ware which is true,
original, artistic, and delightful. This is the same paste as the
[Illustration: FIG. 58.--_Doulton Ware._]
_grès_; but, instead of imitating that, a scale and a variety of colors
have been developed which the old _grès_ could not at all touch. By
means of thousands of experiments and much scientific knowledge, colors
have been found which will bear the heat, and some of the results
attained there of color alone are gratifying.
No pains or cost have been spared by the Messrs. Doulton to bring about
the best work. Artists have been employed--indeed, have been created--to
invent and to bring forth works novel in design and color; and they have
done it. We cannot but welcome their work with open hands and open
hearts; and we have reason to believe that the public has welcomed it
with open purses. A very fine exhibition of this work was made at the
United States Centennial Festival at Philadelphia, which attracted much
and deserved praise. Among the artists early engaged were some ladies
named Barlow, I think, who did excellent work. One of them etched in the
wet clay groups of animals which were spirited and fascinating; the
other, I believe, did flowers and plants. These ladies went to _work_,
and thus solved the "woman question," so far as it concerned themselves.
Their work was much valued by collectors as far back as five or six
years.
Besides this style, many decorated vases, bottles, jugs, cups, etc.,
etc., have been made, of which examples will be seen in our illustration
(Fig. 58).
Not only have great variety and beauty of form been reached, but the
methods of decoration are equally varied. One of the most elaborate is
in the use of beads in lines or singly, so as to produce a jeweled
effect, often very brilliant and very finished; this is in danger of
being carried to excess.
So many pieces of their work have been brought to the United States,
that those interested can see them for themselves, and will need no
further description.
EARLY GERMAN GLAZED POTTERY.--Before leaving this subject a few words
may be said upon the early German work in pottery.
We know but little of the history of the German or Teutonic tribes
before the time of Cæsar; but it was found then that here existed
strong, handsome, vigorous races, who had reached an unexpected degree
of civilization. They had brilliant arms and armor; they respected
woman, and honored old age. In the museums are found examples of the
early German unglazed pottery, so much like that found in Egypt, in
Gaul, in Peru, and in most other parts of the globe, examples of which
are shown in our first chapter upon unglazed pottery. Just when they
began to use the glaze for the finishing and protection of pottery, we
do not know. But it is known that it was in use there some two hundred
years before it had been applied in Italy in the 1400's A. D. There are
evidences sufficient to prove that the use of enamel, in which tin was
an element, was known in Germany as early as the thirteenth century.
The most famous piece of this early glazed pottery is to be seen in the
Church of the Cross, at Breslau, Prussian Silesia. It is a great
monument of pottery, built in honor of the founder of the church, Henry
IV. of Silesia. He lies at length, the size of life, wearing his armor
and his crown, and with a sword in the right hand, a shield in the left.
Around the sarcophagus upon which he lies are twenty-one figures in
bass-relief, the whole executed in the style of the earliest
German-Gothic. Upon the monument is an inscription, saying that Henry
IV. died on the night of St. John, in 1290, etc., etc. This does not
prove that the monument was executed then; but there are other proofs
that it was made about that time, in the dress, etc., etc.
The name most conspicuous among the early potters of Germany is
Hirschvogel, who worked at Nuremberg, and who, indeed, founded potteries
there which continued through the century. He was born in 1441, and died
in 1525. He appears to have been a painter upon glass, but from that
went to the production of glazed pottery. Large plaques in bass-relief
exist of this work, and also artistic earthen-ware stoves, some of which
are elaborately and beautifully modeled. Examples of these, as well as
pots, cruches, etc., etc., are to be seen in the museum at Nuremberg.
The work of the German potters appears to have been finished with the
glaze earlier than that of any others of Europe, except that of the
Moors, in Spain.
CHAPTER V.
GLAZED POTTERY.--MOORISH, PERSIAN, RHODIAN, ETC., ETC.
The Arabs in Spain.--Cordova, Granada, Seville.--Enamel and
Lustres.--Hispano-Moresque.--The Alhambra.--Tiles.--Vase of the
Alhambra.--Malaga.--Majorca and Maiolica.--Rhodian
Pottery.--Damascus Pottery.--Persian and Arabic Pottery.--Persian
Porcelain.--Persian and Arabic Tiles.
Before giving some particulars of the interesting examples of pottery
which have come to us from the Arabs and the Moors of Spain, it may be
well to devote a few moments to the people themselves.
I have thought it well to group under one head a number of their
productions, because they are peculiar, and because they seem to have
sprung from one centre, or to have grown up under a corresponding sense
of the beautiful, so different from that of other peoples.
Beginning with the pottery of the Spanish Moors, now called
_Hispano-Moresque_, and which is the latest, we run backward to the
_Rhodian_, the _Arabic_, the _Damascene_, and the _Persian_. From what
examples I have been able to see of these, they certainly show a strong
family likeness in their colors, their designs, and their clays.
It is hardly to be supposed that this grew out of their religion, or
that the fervid soul of Mohammed fired the souls of his followers with
that striking and low-toned and intense and subtile harmony of blues,
greens, and browns, which is so often seen on their tiles and dishes. It
is more likely that, beginning somewhere, the Arabian potters carried
with them wherever they went their colors and their secrets; and that
what was desired in Persia, or Damascus, or Cairo, must be desired
wherever the "followers of the faithful" were found; and thus they went
to work to produce these various fictile wares which are now so much
sought for.
One of the most curious, most interesting, and most picturesque episodes
in modern history is that of the Moors in Spain.
From the year 712 to the time of the discovery of America, in 1492,
these Moslems held possession of the finest parts of Spain, including
the cities of Cordova, Granada, and Seville. Of these, Cordova and
Seville are older than the Romans. In the first century they were fought
over by Cæsar and Pompey, but were not destroyed. The shores of Spain
were visited by the ships of Tyre, and afterward by the Greeks; but
these came as traders, rather than as conquerors. The old inhabitants,
the Iberians, were brave and determined; but they could not organize,
could not resist the invading arms of Rome, which swept over the world
under the leadership of some one able and daring leader. Then came in
the Vandals and the Goths. They swarmed down upon Italy, and into Spain,
where they became strong and great. As we read history, we see almost
nothing but one long, fierce, destructive fight, and we wonder that
there could have been any art, any learning, any kindness, in the world;
for every man's hand was against every man, and the chief vocation of
great men was to rob and enslave other men. So it has been, so it is
now; the forms change, the fact remains. We have our feudal barons
to-day. But how came the Moors--the Arabs, rather--in Spain? Briefly
this may be answered:
The amazing, almost miraculous power with which _Mohammed the Promised_
had inspired the Arabian race led them forth to conquer and convert.
They went east and they went west, until they stretched along the shores
of the Mediterranean Sea and reached the Pillars of Hercules.
Could the narrow strait stop their way? They passed over it like dry
land, and spread their victorious bands over the southern part of the
peninsula, and possessed themselves of the lovely lands of Andalusia,
Estremadura, Castile, and even penetrated to the cold and savage
mountains of Navarre.
What were these Moors? Were they savage beasts, cruel robbers?
They appear to have brought into Spain not only Art, but the arts,
sciences, learning, literature. Under the strong and able rule of
Abderrahman III. (912 to 961), agriculture, science, trade, and decent
living, throve as they never yet had done in Spain. During the five or
six centuries in which the Moors held the land, it is easy to believe
that Spain enjoyed a greater measure of worldly prosperity than before
or since. In this time Cordova, the seat of the caliphate, grew to have
a population of a million souls; it had three hundred mosques and nine
hundred baths. Its greatest mosque, begun in 786, shone with four
thousand silver lamps, and its dome was raised aloft on twelve hundred
slender pillars.
The city of Granada was built, and upon the sides of its mountain sprang
into being the fairy fortress and palace of the _Alhambra_. Its halls,
its courts, its galleries, its arabesques, its fretwork, its fountains,
even in their ruin, tell us of the power of this singular people.
In Seville, too, the _Alcazar_ and the _Giralda_ even now bear beautiful
witness to their art, their skill, their industry.
There seems little question now that the Moorish potters brought with
them into Spain the arts which the Persian or Arabian potters knew, not
only for the preparing the clays, but that they also had the secret for
making the _stanniferous enamel_, or glaze, into which the use of tin
enters. They also applied to the decoration of their wares certain
_lustres_, which Demmin says were produced by the fumes of bismuth, of
antimony, or of arsenic. It is not probable that gold was a component
part of these lustres.
Just when the Moors went to work to make their tiles and their lustred
dishes, we do not know. But as ornamental tiles--_azulejos_--were used
to decorate their walls, we conclude that the production began almost at
once. These tiles were not only used in bands or strips on the walls;
they were also used as pavements, and the floors of the Alhambra were
glittering with them, some few of which still remain there.
Mr. Ford's description of them, thus quoted by Marryat, says: "Moorish
very fine, and most ancient; surface plain, painted and enameled blue;
the elaborate designs in gold lustre. The inscription on the shield is
the well-known motto of the Mussulman founders of the palace of Granada:
'There is no conqueror but God.' The date of its manufacture may be
placed about 1300."
[Illustration: FIG. 59.--_From the Alhambra._]
Our engraving of one of these tiles (Fig. 59) gives a good
representation of the design, but it cannot, of course, express the
color. No one can fail to see how far away it is from the commonplace
and the ordinary geometric patterns into which the dull man invariably
falls; no one can fail to be struck with the simple intricacy which
interests, we cannot tell why.
Another remarkable piece of their work is _The Vase of the Alhambra_
(Fig. 60), one of the most beautiful and most interesting vases anywhere
known. This is sometimes called "La Jarra," and is figured in Owen
Jones's "Alhambra," where will be found much more that is worthy of
attention. This is supposed to have been made about 1320. I take the
description from Marryat's work: "It is of earthen-ware; the ground
white, the ornaments either blue of two shades, or of that gold or
copper lustre so often found in Spanish and Italian pottery. This
beautiful specimen of Moorish workmanship, which is four feet three
inches in height, was discovered, with another similar to it, beneath
the pavement of the Alhambra, and is said to have been filled with
gold. It was copied in 1842, at the manufactory of Sèvres, from drawings
made in Spain by Dauzats." It has since been copied by Deck, of Paris.
[Illustration: FIG. 60.--_The Vase of the Alhambra._]
_Malaga_ was probably the place where the best of the Moorish work was
made, and there the manufacture continued for centuries. At Valencia
faiences were afterward largely produced, as they are still.
The examples of Moorish dishes remaining are marked by a peculiar
_lustre_, which I have mentioned, which is either a lighter or a darker
yellow, and sometimes of a deep coppery color.
[Illustration: FIG. 61.--_Hispano-Moresque Plate._]
A very fine example of this golden lustred ware is in the collection of
Mr. Wales, at Boston, through whose kindness I am enabled to present the
accompanying illustration (Fig. 61). It is now, I think, hung in the
loan collection of the Museum of Arts at Boston, with many other of his
valuable and interesting pieces.
That any pieces of this work should yet be in existence may excite our
surprise.
The struggle between the Christians and the Moslems for the possession
of the government and the religion of Spain went on through the
centuries. Yet through all these troubled centuries these Moors found
time to build great cities, and to create those beautiful examples of
their peculiar architecture which are so satisfactory even in ruin. They
also did more to encourage learning and the arts than any other nation
of Europe; so that their schools and their scholars became renowned the
world over, and were flocked to by Christian students.
In due time internal dissensions weakened them; then they went to ruin,
and at last were driven out of Spain by the combined Christians. Then it
was that the bitterness of war was intensified with the hatreds of
religion; and then it was that a war of destruction was waged, not only
against the persons of the "vile Moslems," but against all their works;
so that nothing should remain to tell the story of their hated supremacy
and their hated religion. Then it was that the Moorish potters of Malaga
and Valencia were slaughtered or expelled, and then, too, their
handiwork went with them into wholesale destruction.
In this wreck and ruin, it is singular that the mosques, those finest
monuments of the arts and the industry of the Moors, were spared.
These remain, and a few examples of their pottery, of which we have
striven to give some idea, though faint.
One thing seems to be admitted on all hands, viz.: that to the Moors of
Spain Europe owes either the invention or the introduction of siliceous
or glass-glazed wares, and that from that date begins all improvements
in fictile work; that directly from it came the potteries of the
Balearic Islands, and that from Majorca came not only the names into
Italy, but in all probability the potters or their secrets, which
resulted in the production, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of
the wares now so famous under the name of _Majolica_, or, as it is now
spelled, MAIOLICA, of which we shall have something to say further on.
RHODIAN POTTERY.--Pursuing this subject eastward, we find traces of a
lustred pottery on the island of _Sicily_, believed to be the work of
Arabic potters.
Still farther eastward, upon the island of Rhodes, have been found many
plates and dishes, now classed as _Rhodian_, sometimes as _Persian_, and
sometimes as _Damascus_ ware. The styles of this work, their colors and
their designs, seem to group them together, and it is difficult to
separate them in any consistent way.
The first I saw of these were hung on the walls of the house of Mr.
Frederick Leighton, the distinguished artist of London. While following
his art on the island of Rhodes, he had heard that some pottery of this
sort was now and then to be found on the island; the pieces he saw were
very bold and striking, and tradition there said that they were the work
of Persian potters, who, as prisoners, had centuries before been placed
on the island. Finding clay to their hands, they went to work at their
trade, and, with little doubt, practised it diligently through a long
time, and handed it down to their children.
Whatever was the truth of the tradition, a search among the poor people
of the island unearthed many pieces of the ware, which Mr. Leighton
brought with him to London. This was repeated on a second visit, until
now this private collection is probably one of the best in England.
Upon his second return, Mr. Leighton told me he found in London, for
sale, plates and dishes of the same character and coloring which were
said to have been brought around from Persia; so that, whatever may have
been the origin of this ware, whether Rhodes, Persia, or Damascus, the
product was almost the same.
Mr. Fortnum, in his "Hand-Book upon Maiolica," says:
"The paste varies in quality more than in kind, being of a gray-white
color and sandy consistence, analogous to that of the Persian wares. The
decoration is more generally rich in color, the ground white, blue,
turquoise, tobacco-color, and lilac, sometimes covered with scale-work,
with panels of Oriental form or leafage, large sprays of flowers,
particularly roses, tulips, hyacinths, carnations, etc., the colors used
being a rich blue, turquoise, green, purple, yellow, red, black. The
forms are elegant: large bowls on raised feet; flasks or bottles
bulb-shaped with elongated necks; pear-shaped jugs with cylindrical
necks and loop-handle; circular dishes or plates with deep centres, etc.
An interesting example of the highest quality of this ware is in the
writer's possession, and is described and figured in color in vol. xlii.
of the 'Archæologia.' It is a hanging-lamp made for and obtained from
the Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem, signed and dated June, 1549.
"Two leading varieties are known in collections: namely, _Damascus
proper_; known by its evenness of surface and rich glaze with subdued
but harmonious coloring, certain tones of which are peculiar to this
variety; for example, a dull lilac or purple, replacing the embossed red
so conspicuous on the Rhodian, and used against blue, which is of two or
three shades, the turquoise being frequently placed against the darker
tone; a sage green is also characteristic. The dishes of this variety
usually have the outer edge shaped in alternating ogee.
"This kind is much more uncommon than the other, RHODIAN or LINDUS, to
which the greater number of pieces known in collections as 'Persian
ware' belong. It is to Mr. Salzmann that we owe the discovery of the
remains of ancient furnaces at Lindus, in the island of Rhodes, from the
old palaces of which he collected numerous examples. This variety,
although extremely beautiful, is generally coarser than the former, and
the decoration more marked and brilliant. A bright-red pigment, so
thickly laid on as to stand out in relief upon the surface of the piece,
is very characteristic and in many cases is a color of great beauty; the
predominant decoration of the plates consists of two or three sprays of
roses, pinks, hyacinths, and tulips, and leaves, sometimes tied together
at the stem and spreading over the entire surface of the piece in
graceful lines; the border frequently of black and blue scroll-work.
Ships, birds, and animals, are also depicted; and a shield-of-arms
occurs on some pieces."
A few of these striking Rhodian plates are to be seen in America; and I
here engrave one (Fig. 62) from Mr. W. C. Prime's collection, which is
an excellent example. It shows a group of flowers starting from a point,
the central stalk being that of a purple hyacinth. This method of
grouping was a favorite one with these painters. These plates vary in
price in Europe from fifteen to seventy-five dollars each.
Of the DAMASCUS pottery little can be said, because little is known.
From time to time plates and dishes are purchased there and brought to
us, which possess the general character already described as Rhodian,
but are thought to have a delicacy and fineness not found in that
pottery. A very handsome example is in Mr. Wales's collection, which
bears a little gilding, and which, perhaps, may be classed as of
Damascus.
[Illustration: FIG. 62.--_Persian and Rhodian Pottery._]
Of PERSIAN and ARABIC pottery it is impossible, in the vagueness
existing with respect to it, to do more than make a few suggestions.
We cannot do better than to read what Mr. Fortnum has gathered with
regard to this ware:
"We do not derive any information from M. de Rochchouart on the subject
of the lustred wares, except in his description of the tiles of the
Mosque of Natinz of the twelfth century; nor do we learn anything of
that variety of creamy white pottery having the sides pierced through
the paste, but filled with the translucent glaze, and which is believed
to be the Gombr[=o]n ware of Horace Walpole's day. But he gives
interesting information on the subject of the tiles used for decoration,
of which the finest are those mentioned above; those of Ispahan and of
the period of Shah Abbas being also admirable for their exquisite
design.
"The Persian glazed pottery known to us may be divided into:
"_A._ Wares, generally highly baked, and sometimes semi-translucent.
Paste, fine and rather thin, decorated with ruby, brown, and coppery
lustre, on dark-blue and creamy-white ground.
"_B._ Wares, of fine paste, highly baked, semi-translucent, of creamy
color and rich, clear glaze, running into tears beneath the piece of a
pale sea-green tint. Its characteristic decoration consisting of holes
pierced through the paste, and filled in with the transparent glaze: the
raised centres, etc., are bordered with a chocolate brown or blue
leafage, slightly used. This is supposed to be the Gombr[=o]n ware.
"_C._ Wares, frequently of fine paste, and highly baked to
semi-transparency: the ground white; decoration of plants and animals,
sometimes after the Chinese, in bright cobalt blue, the outlines
frequently drawn in manganese; some pieces with reliefs and imitation
Chinese marks also occur; this variety is perhaps more recent than the
others."
This description may apply rather to a sort of semi or imperfect
_porcelain_ of Persian manufacture, as to the reality of which there has
been and is much doubt, rather than to the peculiar class of faience of
which we have been writing.
As to the _porcelain_ or hard faience of PERSIA, here and there are to
be met with singular examples, which, because of a peculiar style of
painting, combined with a certain coarseness or imperfectness of paste,
have usually been relegated to the less dexterous potters of Persia.
That pottery has been made in Persia, far back in the dimness of the
Dark Ages, there seems to be no doubt; just what it was remains a doubt;
because even then a sort of commerce, probably by sea and land, existed
with China, and thence came porcelains of various qualities and many
designs. We are apt to believe that, until our day, there were few
"cakes and ale"--little art, or only coarse fabrics. Whereas fine and
admirable work of many sorts, and especially in porcelain and pottery,
had reached perfection before our European or Western civilization
began. Out of China came porcelain to Persia; out of Persia and
Phoenicia came pottery to us.
Of the Persian porcelain, or hard pottery, a single example is to be
seen in Mr. Avery's collection, now in the Museum of Art at New York. It
was bought at the Vienna Exhibition from Prince _Ehtezad-es-Saltenet_,
uncle to the Shah of Persia, and we may suppose it, therefore, to have
about it the true flavor of genuineness. It is a bowl of rather coarse
ware, approaching to the hardness, if not the translucency, of
porcelain; it is painted with blue of a common color, and with a not
very interesting design; and is valuable as an example of the probable
work of Persian potters.
But there exist many pieces of pottery besides these, which have usually
been called Persian because of their peculiarities of design and of
coloring. Some of these approach closely to the work already designated
as Rhodian or Damascene. In the upper plate of Fig. 62, from Mr. Prime's
collection, is shown one of these, which the owner is inclined to
believe may be Persian and not Rhodian. So also the painted faience egg
(Fig. 62), obtained by him from a lamp in a mosque of the Holy Land. The
face and the coloring do certainly impress one with a Persian faith,
though it may not be easy to explain the reason why.
In my possession is a sweetmeat-pot covered with an "engobe" or "slip,"
upon which are boldly painted in colors flowers and leaves; these last
are peculiar in shape, and are by some believed to be Persian work--I
doubt it, but it is possible.
We have a few words to say of the Persian or Arabic TILES. These have
been found inlaid upon the walls of mosques and palaces and tombs in
Damascus, in Cairo, in Ispahan. As far back as the palmy days of Babylon
and Assyria, these enameled or glazed bricks or tiles were used to
decorate the walls of their buildings; and that is about all we know.
These bricks remain; for, of all the works of man, the brick is
seemingly imperishable.
It is also certain that upon some of these bricks or tiles is found a
glaze or enamel made with the use of tin; so that what is now called
_stanniferous_ enamel was known at that early day, and long before it
was used in Italy by _Luca della Robbia_, who at one time was supposed
to have invented it.
The example here given (Fig. 63) is a very beautiful plaque, made up of
many pieces, and is remarkable for the splendor of its color, rather
than for any perfectness of design. It is interesting, however, as
showing the dresses of the cavaliers of the Persian court.
[Illustration: FIG. 63.--_Persian Plaque._]
In the walls of Damascus, of Jerusalem, and of Cairo, these tiles were
imbedded for ornamental and decorative purposes, and from them they have
been gathered by those good people called "collectors." In Fig. 62 is an
engraving of one in Mr. Prime's collection, which gives simply the
lines, but wholly fails to give the magic and mystery of color which
endues it with beauty. This cannot be described, nor can it be
pictured; the combinations of blues are too subtile for the palette of
the painter; they have been sublimated in the fiery heats of the
furnace.
A few of these tiles are in possession of Mr. Prime and of Mr. Wales;
and a very fine collection is now in the house of Mr. Leighton, of
London, of which I have spoken. He has had them imbedded in the walls of
his halls, which they tinge with their peculiar and pensive light.
CHAPTER VI.
GLAZED POTTERY.--ITALIAN MAIOLICAS.
The Word Maiolica, or Majolica.--Italian Renaissance.--The Dark
Ages.--The Crusades.--The Mezza-Maiolica.--The True Maiolica.--Luca
della Robbia.--Urbino.--Xanto and Fontana.--Raffaelesque Ware.--Mr.
Fortnum.--Prices to-day.--Gubbio.--Maestro Giorgio.--The
Lustres.--Castel-Durante.--Faenza.--The Sgraffito.--Forli, Venice,
Castelli, etc.--Castellani.--Maiolicas at the Centennial.
The term MAIOLICA, or _Majolica_, as has been often explained, came from
the island of Majorca, whence came to Italy, in the twelfth century,
some of those peculiar potteries already described under the name of
_Hispano-Moresque_.
The Balearic Islands, lying in such convenient proximity to the
mainland, were then possessed by the active and enterprising Moors--that
most daring and doing race, who had planted the standard of the Prophet
in Southern Europe. From these convenient islands they could organize
pleasant surprises upon the coasts of Italy, and gratify themselves with
much plunder. While human nature can bear and does bear much marauding,
there comes a time when endurance ceases to be a virtue, and then--war
ensues. Such a time had come in the twelfth century, when the Pisans,
and their friends along the Italian coasts, determined to plunder,
rather than be plundered; and then they pounced upon the hated Moors of
the islands, and turned the tables upon them. It is believed that, among
the spoils carried away to Italy, were many pieces of the peculiar wares
made by the Moors in these islands as well as in Spain. That these
examples, and some of the potters themselves, were carried away to the
Italian coast, is most likely; and that the Italians, always a people
with quick sensibilities, and a ready perception of the beautiful, if
not of the good or the true, at once saw that here was a manufacture
ready to their hands, which combined use and beauty, as their own did
not. At any rate, it was during the most vivid period of the _Italian
Renaissance_ (1350 to 1600) that the production of the highly-decorated
fictile work, known as Maiolica, sprang up, culminated, and went to
decay.
Through the centuries called the Dark Ages, art and literature had not
died; their fires were kept bright in the monkish cell, where some
Alcuin, in England or in France, traced with painful pen the lives of
the saints, or the romaunts of the Lady; and touched their illuminated
margins with those exquisite colors which feed the eye with a pleasant
surprise now, when centuries have passed, and books lie about our feet
as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa's vales. During this dark time art and
literature flourished among the Saracens along the African coast, and
grew into splendor in the halls of Cordova and Seville.
But a day was at hand when Peter the Hermit made his pilgrimage to the
"Holy City" (1093), and came back to preach his fiery crusades against
the abominations with which the Moslems defiled the sepulchre of the
Lord. Then through some two centuries Europe was converted into
religious camps, from which streamed out toward Jerusalem the armies of
the Cross--the Crusaders--and that Oriental world was thus mingled in a
great warlike confusion with the Occidental world of Europe.
How does all this touch upon the small matter of Italian maiolicas, of
which I treat? Thus: these religious wars made Venice, Leghorn, and
Genoa, into great centres of commercial activity, and into them flowed
wealth, as well as every kind of merchandise and manufacture known in
the East. The people of these small kingdoms grew rich, and vastly so.
The Dandolos, the Dorias, the Medicis, founded princely families, and
became patrons of learning and art. Then, too, the Church grew great,
all-powerful, and rich; for the fervor of piety, which fired all hearts,
sought expression not only in shedding its blood to rescue the holy
places, it poured in of its earnings or plunderings rivers of wealth to
enrich the coffers of the Church. The popes, the cardinals, the bishops,
grew great, not so much in religious truth, but more in lands, in
castles, in gold, and in goods. Thus every prelate and every patriarch
became a prince, with gold to give, and favors to bestow. Then they
became, all through Italy, patrons of art and fosterers of learning.
We see in this the spring out of which flowed the "Renaissance" of
literature and the arts, and which resulted in the architecture, the
painting, the poetry, the maiolicas, and the luxury, of that new Italian
life.
The term _maiolica_, in its generic sense, means what _delft_ does in
Holland, _faience_ in France, and _earthen-ware_ in England. All are
soft pottery, covered with an opaque glaze called enamel. The term was
once applied only to the lustred wares of Spain and Italy; but now it
has come to mean such dishes--ewers, vases, etc., etc.--as were made in
Italy during the period of the Renaissance, which have an expression of
art, and can be termed decorative; perhaps it goes still further, for
the druggists' pots (Fig. 64), then much in use, and which may perhaps
be classed wholly with the useful, are not excluded; for upon some of
these much decoration was put. The word also carries a subdivision
called _mezza-maiolica_.
[Illustration: FIG. 64.--_Druggist's Pot._]
MEZZA-MAIOLICA.--We cannot attempt to give a history of all the
potteries which sprang into being in Italy during this time; it would be
both difficult and useless. Of course, we know that many existed, and
must have existed even from the days of the Roman dominion. But, under
the influences mentioned, they took on a new life. Not only had striking
examples come to the Italians from the Moors of Majorca, but beyond
question many others had reached them from time to time from the East.
Common and unglazed potteries gave place to the better sorts; and a vast
stride was taken when the vessel came to be protected by a glaze made
with the use first of lead (_plumbiferous_), and then of tin
(_stanniferous_).
The Italian writers assert that the use of lead--the _plumbiferous
glaze_--was applied in Urbino as early as 1300. Why need we doubt it? At
Pesaro it reached its perfection about 1540. The common earthen or red
ware of the country was dipped into a _slip_ or "_engobe_" of white
clay; then it was dried or baked; then painted, and afterward covered
with a thin skin of lead-glaze, which was fixed with the fire.
The colors used in decorating these pieces were few, being mostly
yellows, greens, blues, and black. This lead-glaze was soft, but it had
a sort of metallic, iridescent lustre, which is one of its peculiarities
and beauties. It is almost useless to attempt with the engraving to
express fully the characteristics of this ware; the colors we cannot
give. One piece (Fig. 65) will serve to show the kind of design often
used, which bears unquestioned testimony to its Moorish parentage.
This finer work seems to have been made about 1500 to 1550, and at
Pesaro.
The TRUE MAIOLICA is that which is covered with a glaze made with the
oxide of tin and siliceous sand. This _stanniferous glaze_ or enamel
takes the place of the "slip" or "engobe," and covers the potter's clay
with a clear white enamel, upon which the colors can be laid.
The avidity with which the new art was seized upon in Italy by dukes and
priests, by workmen and artists, we can hardly comprehend. It would seem
that the whole Italian world then rushed into every form of art and
literature with an eagerness only to be explained by a desire to make
good the Lost Ages--often called the "Dark Ages."
Furnaces and potters sprang out of the ground, and almost every good
town sooner or later had its "botega." Of these we may mention as among
the most noted: Urbino, Gubbio, Pesaro, Castel-Durante, Faenza, Forli,
Caffagiolo, Siena, Deruta, Venice, Castelli, besides many others.
[Illustration: FIG. 65.--_Mezza-Maiolica._]
Before giving some particulars of these manufactures, it may be well to
refer to a name which seems to take precedence of others among the
artists in ceramic work in Italy. This man was LUCA DELLA ROBBIA, born
in the year 1400. M. Ritter says of him: "He was a sculptor first, and a
potter afterward. An artist of the highest power, he was inspired with
all the marvelous æsthetic force and subtilty and fertility of his age
and of his country. He was not satisfied, as other sculptors are, with
form-beauty alone, but cast about to add to his moulded figures the
further beauties of coloring and surface-texture. He no doubt well knew
the wares of the Moors of Spain, and probably was acquainted with the
secret of the tin-glaze already used by the Italian potters. It is
needless to assume, as most writers do, that he discovered tin-glazes
for himself; but he at any rate adopted the process, and he has left us
bass-reliefs and even life-sized statues covered with a fine
stanniferous polychrome-glaze, which are among the wonders of Italian
Renaissance art, and which to this day are, in their way, unsurpassed
triumphs of skill."
The portrait (Fig. 66) which we give shows him to be among the strong
and able men, who might not only stand before kings, but might be a king
himself.
[Illustration: FIG. 66.--_Portrait of Luca della Robbia._]
There are but few pieces of his work in this country--so far as I know,
only these: one a Virgin and Child, in possession of Mr. Prime, of New
York; the other now in the loan collection of the Art-Museum at New
York, the property of Mrs. Robert M. Grinnell. It is thus described:
"The child Jesus lies on a mass of green grass. White lilies with yellow
stamens spring up behind him. The Virgin kneels; above her two winged
cherub heads, and two arms stretched down hold a crown over her head. On
the crown, yellow and blue spots." From the description, the reader
will not be likely to rank this among works of the finest art. These
works were produced to meet the religious wants of the time and people,
and were in great demand. But to-day, for other than religious reasons,
they sell for twenty times the prices they then did.
In Fig. 67 is to be seen a _retable_, now in the Museum of the Louvre,
which is probably among the best examples of his style of work. These
bass-reliefs were at first done with white figures on a blue ground;
subsequently other colors were introduced, such as greens, browns, and
yellows. His four sons and a nephew carried on the same styles of work,
but failed to improve upon their master.
From the two or three pieces of the work which I have seen, I could
value them as examples in the history of ceramics; as _works of art_,
for myself not at all.
Italian writers naturally wish to claim for Luca della Robbia all
possible merit, and particularly that he discovered and first applied in
Europe (outside of Spain) the enamel made from tin; thus raising him to
a high rank as a discoverer and originator, as well as an artist. Much
discussion and speculation has been indulged in, which is, however, of
but little interest to us, and probably less to Della Robbia himself.
What he did do, and for which he deserved praise, was, that he seems to
have worked at the new business he had taken up with honesty and
persistency; that he was patient and painstaking. These are always good.
He was merchant enough to make what then would sell; that is, works for
the ornamentation of churches and altars, one of which we have
illustrated.
He was successful, and that was a satisfaction to him as it is to us.
He made, besides altar-pieces, rondels and squares to be set into walls,
upon which were masks, scrolls, fruit, flowers, buds, etc., etc.; and
these were sometimes white, and sometimes enameled with various colors.
His nephew Andrea followed his lead, but did not improve upon his
master; and _his_ four sons, Giovanni, Luca, Ambrosio, and Girolamo,
continued to make the same description of reliefs, but greatly inferior
to those of the first Della Robbia.
[Illustration: FIG. 67.--_Altar-Piece, by Luca della Robbia, in the
Museum of the Louvre._]
URBINO.--The Dukes of Urbino were foremost in encouraging and developing
the maiolica work of Italy; and around them, as a sort of centre, the
ceramic art seems to have gathered.
I give from Mr. Fortnum's book a brief account, which may interest
many. Having had whatever good could be derived from the great and
valuable collections of the Kensington Museum, and being a man of keen
perceptions and sound judgment, whatever he writes deserves respect. He
says:
"In 1443 what had been but an unimportant mountain fief was erected into
a duchy, and the house of Montefeltro ruled a fair territory in the
person of the infamous Oddantonio, the first Duke of Urbino. On his
violent death in 1444, Federigo, his illegitimate brother, succeeded to
the dukedom. Of enlightened mind, as well as of martial capacity, he
developed the native capabilities of the country, and gathered about him
at the court of Urbino the science and learning of the period. He built
a noble castellated palace at Urbino, for the embellishment of which he
invited the leading artists of the day. A patron of all art, and a great
collector, he encouraged the manufacture of the maiolica wares which
flourished under his reign. On his death, in 1482, his son Guidobaldo I.
continued his father's patronage to the ceramic artists of the duchy,
although much occupied in the Italian wars consequent on the French
invasion by Charles VIII. Passeri states that fine maiolica (by which he
means that covered with the tin-enamel) was introduced into Pesaro in
1500; and there is some reason to believe that the new process came from
Tuscany. It differed materially in composition and manufacture from the
'mezza-maiolica' wares, to which it was very superior, and was known as
'porcellana,' a name applied at that period in Italy to the choicer
description of enameled earthen-ware. Passeri also states that in the
inventory of the ducal palaces a large quantity of painted 'maiolica'
vases were included under this name. The superior whiteness of the
enamel, more nearly approaching to that of Oriental porcelain, was
probably the reason for its adoption; but we must not confound the term
as used in this sense with its technical meaning in reference to a
decorative design known as 'a porcellana.'"
These famous manufactories of maiolica at Urbino, Gubbio, Pesaro, and
Castel-Durante, sprang into life about the end of the fifteenth and the
beginning of the sixteenth centuries. That of Urbino perhaps took the
lead, being so directly under the patronage of the dukes.
The two most distinguished artists here were _Francisco Xanto Avelli da
Rovigo_ and _Orazio Fontana_; they are commonly spoken of as "_Xanto_"
and "_Fontana_." Besides these were Battista Franco and Raffaelle del
Calle, among the best painters upon maiolica.
During the time of these artists many elaborate pictures were painted by
them upon the vases and plates of Urbino. Following the mezza-maiolica,
the work at first showed much of the Oriental character of design, and
the lustred surfaces were continued. But soon ambition seized them, and
they transferred to the surface of the clay elaborate scriptural,
historical, and allegorical subjects. Original designs were made to some
extent; but to a larger extent the great pictures of the great masters
were seized upon--such as Raffaelle's "Triumph of Galatea," and other
works of the same sort. The engravings of Marc Antonio and of Albert
Dürer, then just at hand, gave easy aid; and with such helps, with a
rich and art-loving public to encourage them, we can see how the
production should flourish. The vase (Fig. 68) is a good example of one
of their best works.
These fine pieces were used as presents by grandees to grandees, and by
princes to princes. Pieces and sets were painted expressly as gifts for
lovers, for espoused persons, for safe deliveries; as marks of favor,
and as persuasives for favors to come. Then grew up a large production
of plates painted expressly for lovers, upon which the portrait of the
lady was painted; in many cases, I am sure, with unnecessary ugliness,
but with a sufficiently lovely motto to atone in some degree for the
injury, no doubt unwittingly done--such as "diva" or "paragon di tutti."
These are known as _amatorii_, and are much prized.
In Fig. 69 we give one of these amatorii, and one of the most pleasing;
some are of supreme ugliness. This one is dedicated to _Vanna
Bella_--the beautiful Vanna; and in its time was more beautiful than
now, for it was the inspiration of love.
Among the fancies indulged in upon the amatorii plates and jugs are
mentioned such as these:
On one, we have two hands clasped over a fire; and above, a golden heart
pierced by two darts.
On another, a heart transfixed with a sword and an arrow over a burning
flame, bedewed with tears falling from two eyes placed above.
[Illustration: FIG. 68.--_Maiolica Vase, David and Bath-sheba._]
On a saucer is a youth kissing a lady, and giving her a flower--_Dulce
est amare_.
On another is a greyhound with a heart in its mouth--_Per mento di mia
fè in te_, etc.
All of these are sufficiently youthful and sentimental to meet the wants
of the valentine-makers of to-day.
But the subjects of paintings were not all either divine or historical
or amatory. Many subjects painted from the old mythology had a too
palpable quality which we more fastidious people might call coarse, if
not roughly vulgar; and such subjects do not heighten the pleasure we
expect to find in examining these works.
The "_Raffaelle ware_," as it is sometimes called in England, had a
quality of design which is peculiar, and therefore an example of it may
be of service here (Fig. 70). The combination of scrolls, masks, Cupids,
flowers, buds, etc., which marks this style of work, is found more or
less to pervade much of the ornamentation of what is known as Italian
Renaissance.
[Illustration: FIG. 69.--_Example of Amatorii._]
It has sometimes been said that Raffaelle himself painted upon the
maiolica, but it is not proved; and the finest pieces were not made
until after his death.
It is true that many of his pictures were copied or adapted by the
maiolica-painters for their own uses; and it is also asserted that some
of his pupils painted upon the clay. Marryat states that the engraver
_Marc Antonio_--good prints of whose works now sell to collectors for
enormous prices, beautiful specimens of which have been shown in the
famous collection of Mr. Rose, of London--was in the height of his
powers when the brilliant young painter Raffaelle was in the full
command of his; and that the engraver lived in the house of the painter,
worked with him under his own eye, and was influenced by his
inspirations. We cannot wonder, therefore, that the finest results were
thus produced. But it is not to be believed that either of them worked
upon the clay. Copies of their pictures were painted upon the maiolica
by other hands, and vastly inferior ones to theirs.
[Illustration: FIG. 70.--_Raffaelle Ware._]
What is known as Raffaelle, or Raffaellesque maiolica, are not those
pieces which carry copies of Raffaelle's pictures, but those, like the
example seen in Fig. 70, which are ornamented with arabesques, chimeras,
scrolls, etc.
Of the painting of Xanto, a competent critic, Mr. J. C. Robinson, thus
writes:
"Xanto's works may be considered to represent perfectly the 'Majoliche
istoriate,' and he certainly had a talent for the arrangement of his
works in composition, nearly all his subjects being 'pasticci;' the
various figures or groups introduced being the invention of other
artists copied with adroit variations over and over again, and made to
do duty in the most widely different characters. As an original
artist--if, indeed, he can be so considered--he may be classed with the
more mannered of the scholars of Raffaelle. His designs are generally
from classical or mythological subjects. Xanto's execution, although
dexterous, is monotonous and mechanical; his scale of coloring is crude
and positive, full of violent oppositions, the only merit, if merit it
be, being that of a certain force and brightness of aspect; in every
other respect his coloring is commonplace, not to say disagreeable even;
blue, crude opaque yellow, and orange tints, and bright verdigris green,
are the dominant hues, and are scattered over the pieces in full,
unbroken masses, the yellow especially meeting the eye at the first
glance. In the unsigned pieces, before 1531, the glaze is better and
more transparent, the execution more delicate, and the outline more hard
and black, than in the later specimens. Some of Xanto's wares are
profusely enriched with metallic lustres, including the beautiful ruby
tint; these specimens, however, form but a small, percentage of the
entire number of his works extant. This class of piece is, moreover,
interesting from the fact that the iridescent colors were obviously not
of Xanto's own production, but that, on the contrary, they were applied
to his wares by Mo. Giorgio, and the supposed continuers of Giorgio's
'fabrique' in Gubbio. Many pieces are extant which, in addition to
Xanto's own signature, nearly always written in dark-blue or olive tint,
are likewise signed with the monogram 'N' of the Giorgio school in the
lustre-tint; and one specimen, at least, has been observed which, though
painted by Xanto, has been signed in the lustre-tint by Maestro Giorgio
himself."
At this time there came to Urbino some artists who took the name of
_Fontana_, whose works have a great fame--when known; their name
originally is believed to have been Pellipario. These brothers appear to
have founded a factory or "botega" of their own at Urbino, where they
did much work which reached a high reputation. But little of it,
however, is surely known; for these painters, like most of the
maiolica-painters, but rarely signed their pieces.
"With regard to the Fontana family, chiefs among Italian ceramic
artists, we quote from the notice by Mr. Robinson appended to the
Soulages catalogue. He tells us that 'the celebrity of one member of
this family has been long established by common consent. Orazio Fontana
has always occupied the highest place in the scanty list of maiolica
artists, although at the same time nothing was definitely known of his
works. Unlike their contemporary Xanto, the Fontana seem but rarely to
have signed their productions, and consequently their reputation as yet
rests almost entirely on tradition, on incidental notices in writings
which date back to the age in which they flourished, and on facts
extracted at a recent period from local records. No connected account of
this family has as yet been attempted, although the materials are
somewhat less scanty than usual. There can be no doubt that a
considerable proportion of the products of the Fontana "boteghe" is
still extant, and that future observations will throw light on much that
is now obscure in the history of this notable race of industrial
artists. Orazio Fontana, whose renown seems to have completely eclipsed
that of the other members of his family, and, in fact, of all the other
Urbinese artists, is first mentioned by Baldi, at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, in his eulogy of the state of Urbino pronounced
before Duke Francesco Maria II.... From documents cited by Raffaelli, it
is established beyond doubt that the original family name was
_Pellipario_, of Castel-Durante, Fontana being an adopted surname; and
it is not immaterial to observe that down to the latest mention of any
one of the family (in 1605) they are invariably described as of
Castel-Durante.... The Fontana were undoubtedly manufacturers as well as
artists, i.e., they were the proprietors of "vaserie." Of the first
Nicola, as we have only a brief incidental notice, nothing positive can
be affirmed; but with respect to his son Guido we have the testimony
both of works still extant and of contemporary documents. We know,
also, that Guido's son Orazio also had a manufactory of his own, and the
fact is established that between 1565 and 1571 there were two distinct
Fontana manufactories--those of father and son. What became of Orazio's
establishment after his death, whether continued by his brother Camillo
or reunited to that of the father, there is no evidence to show. With
respect to the remaining members of the family, our information is of
the scantiest kind. Camillo, who was inferior in reputation as a painter
only to his elder brother, appears to have been invited to Ferrara by
Duke Alfonso II., and to have introduced the maiolica-manufacture into
that city. Of Nicola, the third (?) son, we have only incidental mention
in a legal document, showing that he was alive in the year 1570. Guido,
son of Camillo, lived till 1605; and of Flaminio, who may either have
been son of Camillo or of Nicola, Dennistoun's vague notice asserting
his settlement in Florence is all I have been able to collect. No signed
pieces of Camillo, Flaminio, Nicola the second, or Guido the second,
have as yet been observed.
"'A considerable proportion of the Fontana maiolica is doubtless still
extant; and it is desirable to endeavor to identify the works of the
individual members of the family, without which the mere knowledge of
their existence is of very little moment; but this is no easy task;
although specimens from the hands of one or other of them are to be
undoubtedly found in almost every collection, the work of comparison and
collation has as yet been scarcely attempted. The similarity of style
and technical characteristics of the several artists, moreover, working,
as they did, with the same colors on the same quality of enamel-ground,
and doubtless in intimate communication with each other, resolves itself
into such a strong family resemblance that it will require the most
minute and careful observation, unremittingly continued, ere the
authorship of the several specimens can be determined with anything like
certainty. The evidence of signed specimens is, of course, the most to
be relied on, and is indeed indispensable in giving the clew to complete
identification in the first instance; but in the case of the Fontana
family a difficulty presents itself which should be noticed in the
outset. This difficulty arises in determining the authorship of the
pieces signed "_Fatto in botega_," etc.--a mode of signature, in fact,
which proves very little in determining individual characteristics,
inasmuch as apparently nearly all the works so inscribed are painted by
other hands than that of the proprietor of the Vaseria. In cases,
however, in which the artist has actually signed or initialed pieces
with his own name, of course no such difficulty exists, but the
certainty acquired by this positive evidence is as yet confined in the
case of the Fontana family to their greatest name, Orazio.'"
With regard to the artistic quality of this work, I will quote the
criticism of a competent judge, Mr. Fortnum, as upon the general
question I have a few words to say further on; for it is unfortunately
true that too many buy for the name, and not the merit. He says:
"The celebrated vases made for the _spezieria_ of the duke were produced
at the Fontana fabrique, and subsequently presented to the Santa Casa at
Loreto, where many of them are still preserved. Those shown to the
writer on his visit to that celebrated shrine some few years since did
not strike him as being of such extraordinary beauty and great artistic
excellence as the high-flown eulogy bestowed upon them by some writers
would have led him to expect. The majority of the pieces are drug-pots
of a not unusual form, but all or nearly all of them are 'istoriati,'
instead of being, as is generally the case, simply decorated with
'trofei,' 'foglie,' 'grotesche,' the more usual and less costly
ornamentation. Some of the pieces have serpent-handles, mask-spouts,
etc., but he vainly looked for the magnificent vases of unsurpassed
beauty; nor, indeed, did he see anything equal to the shaped pieces
preserved in the Bargello at Florence. The work of the well-known hands
of the Fontana fabrique is clearly recognizable, and several pieces are
probably by Orazio. Some, more important, preserved in a low press, were
finer examples. We have said that the pieces individually are not so
striking, but, taken as a whole, it is a very remarkable service, said
to have originally numbered three hundred and eighty vases, all painted
with subjects after the designs of Battista Franco, Giulio Romano,
Angelo, and Raffaelle; and, as the work of one private artistic pottery
in the comparatively remote capital of a small duchy, it bears no slight
testimony to the extraordinary development of every branch of
art-industry in the various districts of Italy during the sixteenth
century."
At the period of which we write, Italy had become the leading nation of
Europe in all that pertained to literature and the arts; her painters,
sculptors, and poets, had thrown over her people and history a glory, or
rather a glamour, which was but the iridescence which whispered of
decay. Within a century all had sunk into insignificance and palsy.
To-day the world visits Italy to see with curious eyes what she _has_
been, not what she is.
The art and the maiolica which she now produces are but copies, and too
often bad copies, of that past. The manufactories of _Ginori_ at
Florence, and of _Giustiniani_ at Naples, make much good work; but, so
far as I have seen, they blindly copy the shapes, the colors, and the
decoration, of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and attempt
nothing more. And the pity is that we, who buy to-day, seem to _want_
only those!
In our pursuit of art it may be well to remember that no nation can be
created by "art," and none can be saved by it. When it is enlisted only
in copying the past, it means feebleness and decay.
From about the year 1500 to 1560 is counted the "fine period" of
maiolica-painting, when the painters of whom I have spoken were
transferring the compositions of such artists as Raffaelle, Giulio
Romano, and Parmegiano, to the clay. These have always had a great
value, and always will. The prices vary as the fashion varies. I find at
the Bernal sale, in 1856, the prices quoted range from five to one
hundred and twenty pounds, since which time they have enormously
increased, so that Marryat quotes one piece at eight hundred and eighty
pounds; and a beautiful ruby-lustred dish of _Gubbio_ maiolica,
exhibited in Sir Richard Wallace's collection at Bethnal Green, _was
said_ to have cost forty thousand dollars, which one easily doubts. The
most extreme prices were and are paid for the elaborate figure-pieces
copied from the works of Raphael and others. When to these are added the
brilliant lustres of Gubbio, we have all that maiolica can show.
When the fabric began to decline in quality, the elaborate
figure-painting rapidly went out of use, and arabesques of all kinds,
conceits of all kinds--birds, boys, monsters, anything--came in to vary
the decoration: these could be done by inferior painters; and the
decline of maiolica was as sudden as its rise had been rapid.
GUBBIO.--I have spoken of a beautiful plate, brilliant with its
ruby-lustre, exhibited at Bethnal Green in the collection of Sir Richard
Wallace. The work done at this small town of Gubbio is noted for its
_lustres_; for, while other maiolicas also were decorated with these
exquisite flashings of color, these had a marked superiority. The
paintings applied there, like those at Urbino, Castel-Durante, and the
other "botegas," were in considerable variety, including sacred,
profane, and historical subjects; the beauty and the value of these
colored lustres were soon discovered. To one man the especial honor has
been given of making them, whether he was the discoverer or not. He is
known as _Maestro Giorgio Andreoli_, usually called "Maestro Giorgio."
He was not only a painter and designer, but he early saw and seized upon
the magical art of imparting an added beauty by the use of what is
termed _lustre_. It was applied before his day by the Moors of Spain and
Majorca, and also by the potters at Pesaro. But Giorgio seems to have
produced results finer than any; and one, the ruby-color, seems to be
identified with him. Besides the ruby, he used, with great effect, gold,
silver, and copper lustres; and not only were these applied to the
paintings done under his eye, but works from other factories were sent
to him to be endued with this subtile charm.
I cannot do better than to give here the results of Mr. Fortnum's
careful study of this subject:
"Chiefly under the direction of one man, it would seem that the produce
of the Gubbio furnaces was for the most part of a special nature;
namely, a decoration of the pieces with the lustre-pigments, producing
those brilliant metallic-ruby, golden, and opalescent tints which vary
in every piece, and which assume almost every color of the rainbow as
they reflect the light directed at varying angles upon their surface.
That the Gubbio ware was of a special nature, and produced only at a few
fabriques almost exclusively devoted to that class of decoration, is to
be reasonably inferred from Piccolpasso's statement, who, speaking of
the application of the maiolica-pigments, says, '_Non ch'io ne abbia
mai fatto ne men veduto fare._' He was the maestro of an important
botega at Castel-Durante, one of the largest and most productive of the
Umbrian manufactories, within a few miles, also, of those of Urbino,
with which he must have been intimately acquainted and in frequent
correspondence. That he, in the middle of the sixteenth century, when
all these works were at the highest period of their development, should
be able to state that he had not only never applied or even witnessed
the process of application of these lustrous enrichments, is, we think,
a convincing proof that they were never adopted at either of those seats
of the manufacture of enameled pottery. Although much modified and
improved, lustre-colors were not invented by Italian artists, but were
derived from the potters of the East, probably from the Moors of Sicily,
of Spain, or of Majorca. Hence (we once more repeat) the name 'majolica'
was originally applied only to wares having the lustre enrichment; but,
since the decline of the manufacture, the term has been more generally
given: all varieties of Italian enameled pottery being usually, though
wrongly, known as 'maiolica.'
"That some of these early _bacili_, so well known, and apparently the
work of one artist, were made at Pesaro, whence the secret and probably
the artist passed to Gubbio, is far from improbable. The reason for this
emigration is not known, but it may be surmised that the large quantity
of broom and other brush-wood necessary for the reducing process of the
reverberatory furnace in which this lustre was produced might have been
more abundantly supplied by the hills of Gubbio than in the vicinity of
the larger city on the coast. That the process of producing these
metallic effects was costly, we gather from Piccolpasso's statement that
sometimes not more than six pieces out of a hundred succeeded in the
firing.
"The fame of the Gubbio wares is associated almost entirely with one
name, that of Giorgio Andreoli. We learn from the Marchese Brancaleoni
that this artist was the son of Pietro, of a 'Castello' called 'Judeo,'
in the diocese of Pavia; and that, accompanied by his brother Salimbene,
he went to Gubbio in the second half of the fifteenth century. He
appears to have left and again returned thither in 1492, accompanied by
his younger brother Giovanni. They were enrolled as citizens on the 23d
of May, 1498, on pain of forfeiting five hundred ducats if they left the
city in which they engaged to continue practising their ceramic art.
Patronized by the dukes of Urbino, Giorgio was made 'castellano' of
Gubbio. Passeri states that the family was noble in Pavia. It is not
known why or when he was created a 'Maestro'--a title prized even more
than nobility--but it is to be presumed that it took place at the time
of his enrollment as a citizen, his name with the title 'Maestro' first
appearing on a document dated that same year, 1498. Piccolpasso states
that maiolica-painters were considered noble by profession. The family
of Andreoli and the 'Casa' still exist in Gubbio, and it was asserted by
his descendant, Girolamo Andreoli, who died some forty years since, that
political motives induced their emigration from Pavia.
"Maestro Giorgio was an artist by profession, not only as a draughtsman,
but as a modeler; and, being familiar with the enameled terra-cottas of
Luca della Robbia, is said to have executed with his own hands and in
their manner large altar-pieces. We were once disposed to think that
great confusion existed in respect to these altar-pieces in _rilievo_,
and were inclined to the belief that, although some of the smaller
lustred-works may have been modeled by Giorgio, the larger altar-pieces
were really only imported by him. Judging from the most important which
we have been able to examine, the 'Madonna del Rosario,' portions of
which are in the museum at Frankfort-on-the-Main, it seemed to approach
more nearly to the work of some member of the Della Robbia family. This
fine work is in part glazed, and in part colored in distemper on the
unglazed terra-cotta, in which respect it precisely agrees with works
known to have been executed by Andrea della Robbia, assisted by his
sons. There are no signs of the application of the lustre-colors to any
portion of the work, but this might be accounted for by the great risk
of failure in the firing, particularly to pieces of such large size and
in high-relief. Be this as it may, from a further consideration of the
style of this work and the record of others, some of which are
heightened with the lustre-colors, and the fact stated by the Marchese
Brancaleoni that a receipt for an altar-piece is still preserved in the
archives of Gubbio, we are inclined to think that history must be
correct in attributing these important works in ceramic sculpture to
Maestro Giorgio Andreoli. If they were his unassisted work, he deserves
as high a place among the modelers of his period as he is acknowledged
to have among artistic potters.
"Maestro Giorgio's manner of decoration consists of foliated scrolls and
other ornaments terminating in dolphins, eagles, and human heads,
trophies, masks, etc.; in the drawing of which he exhibited considerable
power, with great facility of invention. These 'grotesche' differ
materially from those of Urbino and Faenza, approaching more to the
style of some of the Castel-Durante designs. In the drawing of figures,
and of the nude, Giorgio cannot be ranked as an artist of the first
class. From 1519 his signature, greatly varied, occurs through
succeeding years. It would be useless to repeat the many varieties,
several of which will be seen in the large catalogue and among the marks
on specimens in other collections. We believe that to whim or accident
may be ascribed those changes that have tasked the ingenuity of
connoisseurs to read as other names. His finer and more important pieces
were generally signed in full, 'Maestro Giorgio da Ugubio,' with the
year, and sometimes the day of the month."
It may be said that the secret of this ruby-lustre was soon lost, and
has not been fully recovered; although admirable pieces are now made in
England.
It is impossible to convey in any engraving the subtile beauty imparted
by these lustres; it seems to me that this is by far the finest and most
fascinating quality of the maiolicas.
Of the work made at CASTEL-DURANTE but little need be said in addition
to what has been written upon the general subject of Italian maiolica.
This was a small town in the neighborhood of Urbino; which town since
then has been dignified with the name of Urbania, after Pope Urban VIII.
At Castel-Durante pottery was made long before it reached the name and
fame of maiolica. Through a book left by a potter of the place, named
Piccolpasso, it is perhaps better known than by the maiolica made
there. This manuscript book, which he illustrated with pen-and-ink
drawings, gives some account of the wares produced there. I believe the
book is now the property of the Kensington Museum at London. There are
some few signed examples of the maiolica of Castel-Durante in the
collections of England and of the Continent. I know of none in the
United States. Of a piece owned by Mrs. H. T. Hope, of England, Mr.
Robinson says in his enthusiastic way, "In the design and execution of
the painting, splendor of color, and perfection of enamel-glaze, this
magnificent piece is a triumph of the art."
The ware made here is said to be recognized by "a pale buff-colored
paste, and great richness and purity of the glaze." Still none but an
expert--a person who has made these productions a study--could
distinguish them from those made at some other Italian factories.
FAENZA.--Under the name of _Faenza_, an old town of Roman Italy, all
sorts of waifs and strays which have no other home are likely to be
classed. Its productions have no such peculiarities as mark those of
Urbino, Gubbio, and some other Italian "botegas." But for the antiquity
and extent of its potteries, and also because it seems to have given the
name "_faience_" to all earthen-ware pottery made in France, it has a
certain importance. I therefore give a single extract from what Mr.
Fortnum has written about it. As there are a considerable number of
these druggist's pots (see Fig. 64) in this country, the matter may be
of interest. He writes:
"From an early period Faenza seems to have produced a large number of
electuary-pots and pharmacy-bottles; a pair are in the Hôtel Cluny, one
bearing the name FAENZA, the other 1500. Many of these vases are
decorated in the style known as _a quartiere_, being divided into
compartments, painted in bright yellow, etc., on dark blue, with
foliated and other ornament, and usually having a medallion with profile
head or subject on one side, under which the name of the drug in Gothic
lettering is inscribed on a ribbon. A curious example is in the British
Museum: a large flask-shaped bottle of dark-blue ground with yellow
leafage and with twisted handles, upon the medallion of which is
represented a bear clasping a column, with the inscription, '_et
sarrimo boni amici_,' allusive, in all probability, to the
reconciliation of the rival houses of Orsini and Colonna in 1517.
"We would here refer to the frequent occurrence on these vases, as
occasionally upon other pieces, of pharmaceutical and ecclesiastical
signs, letters, etc., surmounted by the archiepiscopal cross and other
emblems which we believe have reference to the uses of monastic and
private pharmacies for which the services were made, and not to be
confounded, as has been too frequently the case, with the marks of
_boteghe_ or of the painters of the piece. These emblems have no other
value to us than the clew which they might afford to patient
investigation of the locality and brotherhood of the conventual
establishment to which they may have belonged, and among the archives of
which may be recorded the date and the fabrique by which they were
furnished. But what are of far greater interest are those admirable
early pieces, painted by ceramic artists of the first rank, who, beyond
a rare monogram or date, have left no record of their place or name; and
whose highly-prized works, for their authors are several, are jealously
guarded in our public and private museums. Some of these, with
reasonable probability, are believed to have been executed at Faenza.
Several examples are preserved, of an early character, perhaps the work
of one hand, who marked them on the back with a large 'M' crossed by a
paraph. They are usually plateaux with raised centre, on which is a
portrait-head, or shallow dishes with flat border. Variations of the
letter 'F' are found on pieces, some of which are fairly ascribable to
this fabrique; but we need not point out the fact that many other
localities of the manufacture can claim the same for their initial
letter, and that the characteristics and technical qualities of the
pieces themselves are a necessary test.
"Later in the sixteenth century, when subject-painting, covering the
whole surface of the piece, was in general fashion (_istoriata_), the
unsigned works produced at Faenza are difficult to distinguish from
those of other fabriques. Some examples exist in collections, as one in
the Louvre, with the subject of a cavalry-skirmish, and inscribed,
'_1561 in Faenca_;' but we have no knowledge of their painters, and even
the occurrence of the name of that city is but rarely met with. Her
wares are usually richly ornamented on the back with imbrication, as
was the manner of Manara, or with concentric lines of blue, yellow, and
orange.
"Of the pottery produced at Faenza during the seventeenth and the last
century we have but little record. Some pharmacy-vases are mentioned by
M. Jacquemart, signed 'Andrea Pantales Pingit, 1616,' but the signature
does not appear to be accompanied by the name of that city. In 1639
Francesco Vicchij was the proprietor of the most important fabrique.
"A modern establishment professes to occupy the premises of the ancient
Casa Pirota, where we have seen fairly good reproductions of the
ordinary _sopra azzuro_ plates of the old botega; but these are but weak
imitations, and the glory of Faentine ceramic art must be looked for in
museums."
The "SGRAFFIATO" wares of Italy do not come under the head of maiolica.
The term is used to designate work where the design is scratched or
incised upon the clay; and in Italy, often upon a white clay laid over a
darker clay, so that the design shows through the lighter "slip" or
"engobe," as the covering is called.
Of _Forli_, _Venice_, _Castelli_, or _Abruzzi_, and the many other
manufactories of maiolica, it will be almost useless to write here. We
have few, if any, examples of the work in this country; and without
examples it is difficult to make the subject interesting.
I have not attempted to give any "marks" of maiolica, for two reasons:
one, that we have so little opportunity for purchasing that the
knowledge of the marks, such as they are, would be almost wholly
useless; and, second, these marks are of little use anywhere. Few of the
painters were in the habit of marking their work; and, when they did,
their marks seem to have had no uniformity, and were varied in many
whimsical ways. Those who wish to buy pieces of maiolica, unless they
have made the matter a study, will hardly do it without consulting a
person of experience; and a person of experience will not be guided
solely by the marks.
It can do no harm to say that admirable counterfeits are now made, both
in Italy and in France (probably also in Germany), of the finest of the
old maiolicas, design, color, and all complete. Even judicious chippings
of edges and mild cracks are added to please the exacting connoisseurs.
Any person, therefore, who is looking for the best specimens of "genuine
old" maiolicas, at the _smallest prices_, will be fairly and fully met
in the shops of the Continent.
[Illustration: FIG. 71.--_From the Kensington Collection._]
With regard to some of the most celebrated maiolica, I have quoted the
judgments of two most competent writers as to the beauties of two of the
most famous artists. It is far from being high praise. I venture to say,
in addition, that much, very much, of what I have had the opportunity to
see, strikes me forcibly as being crude and poor in color, bad in
drawing, uninteresting in design, and wretched in clay and in glaze. Not
that there are not good and beautiful works among the maiolicas; but it
seems to me they are few.
Besides this, I believe the great maiolica-painters, such as Xanto and
Giorgio, were wholly wrong in attempting to transfer to pottery the
pictures of Raffaelle and Giulio Romano; at least, they can be but very
poor representations of the pictures themselves, and therefore unjust to
their models, and useless to us as examples of high art.
We copy here (Fig. 71), from Mr. Fortnum, one of the elaborate
figure-pieces of maiolica in the Kensington collection; which, as it
seems to us, is a striking proof of what has just been said.
In the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston are to be seen
ten or twelve plates, bowls, etc., which give a fair exhibition of the
work of the sixteenth-century painters. Some of these are attributed to
the best masters, the Fontana and Xanto, and one has the mark of Xanto.
The large and varied collection of Italian maiolicas brought to the
Philadelphia Exhibition in 1876 is now (May, 1877) to be seen in the
rooms of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at New York, and it offers an
excellent opportunity for examining and studying these styles of fictile
work.
WHAT IS DOING IN ITALY NOW.--A very large show of Italian maiolica of
to-day was made at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876.
What did we find there? Hundreds of imitations. Italy especially has
been devoting herself with great industry to reproductions of the vases,
ewers, tazzas, plaques, dishes, and so on, of the past; and some very
fair ones were sent from Pesaro, Rome, and Faenza. The vases and ewers
bearing figure-pieces or mythological pictures had a certain quality
peculiar to this style of work which at first may excite distaste rather
than desire, but after a time may induce a mild sort of assent; more, we
believe, from the low and quiet tones and harmonies of color than from
any marked excellence of either the form of the vase or the painted
subject. The two names most conspicuous as potters in Italy
now--_Ginori_ at Florence, and _Giustiniani_ at Naples--did not appear
among the exhibitors, so far as we know. Of Ginori's work we give a fine
example in Fig. 71_a_. But if draughtsmen and artists so good would only
give us their pictures of the life of Italy to-day as they so well could
do--of the peasants and their donkeys, their vine-dressing and
wine-making, their fishing, their cooking, their street-work in its
thousand varieties! That they could, and do not; that they continue on
and on with the stupid round of copy after copy in all departments of
art, may mean that the good public who have money to spend want these
copies, and therefore potters and painters sink from the clear air of
invention and originality into the dull inanities of copying.
[Illustration: FIG. 71 _a_.--_Maiolica Vase, by Ginori._]
CHAPTER VII.
FRENCH FAIENCE.--PALISSY WARE, AND HENRI-DEUX WARE.
Bernard Palissy.--The Catholics and the
Huguenots.--Saintes.--Figurines.--The Centennial
Exhibition.--Prices.--Henri-Deux--where made--when.--Copies at
Philadelphia.--List of Pieces extant, and Prices.
Bernard Palissy.--Over the name and fame of Palissy hangs an aureola of
glory. He was a potter, and he learned his trade through much
perseverance and much suffering. But, more than that, he was a
Protestant in the days of the Leaguers, when to be a Protestant in
France meant to persecute or to be persecuted; and it meant also peril
and probable death. Palissy was born about 1510, and died in 1590. He
lived, therefore, through the times of the bitter and cruel wars of the
Huguenots and the Catholics, when political and religious and social
intrigues divided the nobility of France into factions, which were not
only ready to, but did, rend each other's throats. He lived--he, a
Protestant--through the wholesale butcheries of St. Bartholomew (1572),
when it is asserted that from twenty to one hundred thousand Protestants
were slaughtered in the kingdom of France in cold blood.
Palissy was one of those Protestants, was known as one, and he was not
slaughtered. From this fact has come a good part of his glory, as a few
words may serve to explain.
For a long time the struggle for power between the Catholic party and
the Huguenot party had raged, with varying fortunes, when both sides
pillaged and persecuted, and true religion was driven to the wall, or
fled from France. At last the Catholic party, under the lead of the Duke
of Guise, secured the preëminence, and in due time--in 1559--severe
edicts were issued against the Protestants. Palissy was not safe; but by
that time he had acquired reputation as a potter, and had made pieces of
his rustic ware for the king and for members of the court. He was known
to the king; and the queen-mother, Catherine de' Medicis, brought him to
Paris, established his furnaces in the grounds of the Tuileries, made
him a servant of the king, and so saved him for the time from the
persecutions which swept away his brethren.
It must be remembered that those were days in which many men
_believed_--believed that their truth or faith was the only thing to
save them from the eternal fires of hell. Palissy was one of those
earnest, intense, narrow natures who believed their faith was the only
true faith for man. All the influence of the queen, the persuasions of
the priests, and even the appeals of the king, could not shake him.
Palissy has written his own story, and it has the interest of romance
and the fervor of faith. When he was eighty years old he was thrown into
the Bastile, with other stanch Huguenots, because of his faith. The
king, Henry III., is reported to have said:
"My good friend, you have now been five-and-forty years in the service
of my mother and myself; we have allowed you to retain your religion in
the midst of fire and slaughter. Now I am so hard pressed by the Guises
and my own people, that I am constrained to deliver you up into the
hands of your enemies, and to-morrow you will be burned unless you are
converted."
Inflexible to the last, the old man is reported to have answered the
king in this wise:
"Sire, I am ready to resign my life for the glory of God. You have told
me several times that you pity me; and I in my turn pity you, who have
used the words '_I am constrained_.' It was not spoken like a king,
sire; and these are words which neither you nor those who constrain you,
the Guisards and all your people, will ever be able to make me utter,
for I know how to die."
The whole world admires pluck; and that, we cannot doubt, marked the
character of the man. We need only to look at his face (Fig. 72) to
believe that he might have said those words. And those who came after
him, inheriting in a degree the hatred of the Catholics which he
enjoyed, have not allowed the words nor the fame of the man to die.
But he was not put to death; he lingered out his last year in the
prisons of the Bastile, and then departed.
The story he left behind him, of his own struggles and sufferings in
seeking and finding the arts of the potter, has been intensified by his
admirers; they have added to its intrinsic interest by telling of his
patience, his endurance, his suffering, and his final success--that
which can be imparted by the glow of admiring souls, who see in him a
hero such as they would themselves wish to be, but are not.
[Illustration: FIG. 72.--_Bernard Palissy._]
That story is briefly this: He was born poor, but he had patience,
industry, and an aspiring nature. He studied, he learned, he sought; he
became something of a draughtsman, a painter, a surveyor, a writer.
Glass-painting may be said to have been his occupation, or one of them;
and, in following this, he came quickly into sympathy with cognate
arts. We can well believe, therefore, that when he saw a
beautifully-enameled cup--whether one of those now so famous as the
_Henri-Deux_ ware, or whether one of those already made at Nuremberg by
_Hirschvogel_ (probably the latter)--we can well believe that it
inspired his soul with enthusiasm, and held him with the tenacity we
know to have marked his character.
From that day he was possessed; he had a mastering thought: it was to
discover the secrets of this art, and to apply them to the production of
like ware in France, where it was not known. With little or no knowledge
of chemistry, with none of pottery, he set himself to the task. He
worked persistently, indefatigably, but darkly, ignorantly, wastefully,
and at last only reached a half-success. He did this, too, by
sacrificing largely of his own life for sixteen years, and, more than
that, as he has himself told the story, by the hard and almost cruel
sacrifice of the decent comforts of life of his wife and family. He
borrowed the money of his friends and neighbors to conduct his
experiments; he burned his tables and chairs to heat his furnaces; he
could not pay his assistants; he could bear the tears and reproaches of
his wife and his friends, and did so for years; and all this for what
some persons call the "glorious result" of discovering a glaze for
pottery--which had already been known and was in full practice at
Nuremberg, only a hundred miles from him! If, as is stated by Demmin, he
did himself visit Nuremberg to see and learn what was there being done,
his course becomes still more inexplicable and unpraiseworthy. And what
makes the matter still more curious is that, after all, he did not
succeed in discovering or applying the stanniferous enamel; for M.
Demmin states positively that his glaze was the plumbiferous glaze, and
not the stanniferous. Quoting his words, he says: "On ne rencontre pas
la moindre parcelle d'émail stannifère, blanc ou autres, sur les
poteries attribuées à ce maître. Le _blanc_ est une terre blanchâtre
qui, couverte d'un vernis incolore, conserve sa blancheur."
If, therefore, it may be questioned whether the object of discovering a
stanniferous glaze was worthy the sacrifice of sixteen years of his own
life, as well as of the peace and comfort of his friends and family; and
if, after all, he did not discover it; and if, besides that, he might
have obtained it from Hirschvogel without all this tribulation, and did
not--we may well be at a loss to understand the high praise which in
some quarters has been lavished on Palissy; and for myself I am not
willing to continue it. Martyrdom is usually a very poor business, and
the cause of good pottery certainly does not demand it.
[Illustration: FIG. 73.--_Large Oval Dish, from the Museum of the
Louvre._]
The work begun at _Saintes_ about 1535, and afterward carried on at
Paris, is marked by peculiarities which for a long time were supposed to
be confined to the wares of Palissy. These were the use of shells,
lizards, snakes, fish, frogs, insects, and plants, in high-relief upon
the surface of his plates and dishes. This will be shown in the example
we give (Fig. 73), which is one of the finest pieces of this work
extant, now in the museum of the Louvre. And even this is now believed
by some competent experts to be of modern manufacture.
These natural objects were modeled with considerable care, and colored
to represent the real things, so that they have a value to the
naturalist as well as to the potter.
[Illustration: FIG. 74.--_Palissy Dish._]
As works of ceramic art, can we accord them a high rank, or can we get
much satisfaction in their contemplation? Can we accept them as _art_ at
all? Admit them to be clever imitations--and that is all, it seems to
me, we can do--and they fall to the place of prettiness, and rank with
wax-flowers and alabaster-apples.
[Illustration: FIG. 75.--_A Basket, by Palissy, in the Kensington
Museum._]
It is quite certain that work of this sort was done by many potters
after Palissy, if not by his contemporaries; and collectors have been
induced to pay great prices for things alleged to be the work of
Palissy which are now known not to have been made by him. In addition to
this, the world is full of counterfeits of this sort of thing which
out-Palissy Palissy; and the extravagant prices once paid for
counterfeits cannot now be obtained for what are known to be genuine.
[Illustration: FIG. 76.--_Perpendicular View, showing the Marguerites on
the Edge._]
The other two examples shown in Figs. 74, 75, and 76, differ from the
first; and it may be doubted whether these are not to be attributed to
some other potter than Palissy. The cornucopia on Fig. 74 was a favorite
decoration at Rouen, and might readily enough find a place there.
This style of work, being made in moulds, can be easily and cheaply
reproduced.
At one time a large number of _figurines_, such as "The Nurse" and
others, were attributed to Palissy, notwithstanding that the dresses,
and in some cases the persons, did not exist until after the time of
Palissy; but it is now asserted that there is nothing at all to prove
that Palissy ever made this style of work.
A great number of examples may be seen of so-called "Palissy" in the
Kensington Museum at London and in the Louvre at Paris. But they nowhere
hold the high places they once did, nor do they bring the prices they
once did. In the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia of 1876 a great
variety of this sort of work was shown, made by the clever potters of
the day in Europe.
[Illustration: FIG. 77.--_Palissy Jug, from the Museum of the Louvre._]
A very large sale has been found within the last twenty years for
imitations of Palissy ware, and these have been made with great skill by
Barbizôt and Aviso, of France, and by Minton, of England; indeed, some
of these seem much better than any I have seen supposed to be the
genuine thing. The virtues most needed are, of course, patience and a
keen faculty of imitation--art in any good sense is not essential.
The sales of Palissy ware at the Bernal sale were not at the high
figures they afterward reached. The prices ran from seven to one hundred
and sixty-two pounds, the latter price having been paid for a circular
dish twelve and a half inches in diameter, which, having been broken
into pieces and mended, was bought by the Baron Rothschild.
We give, in Fig. 77, another style of work--a very beautiful jug in the
collection of the Louvre. It is there placed among the works of Bernard
Palissy; and there are various other pieces of like work so catalogued
in the public and private collections of Europe. But there are doubts as
to these, which in some minds approach to certainty--doubts whether
Palissy himself worked at all with the human form. It is well known that
he was a naturalist, a geologist, a scientist, but it is not certain
that he was an artist in this direction. Some students assert distinctly
that he was not; and it seems most probable that he was not a modeler of
the human figure.
As work like this, shown in the last illustration, has for so long a
period been attributed to him, it has seemed desirable to give an
example of it in our pages. That it is work of his time, if not made by
him or under his direction, is not questioned.
HENRI-DEUX WARE: FAIENCE D'OIRON.--This unique earthen-ware for years
perplexed the lovers of pottery. It seemed to appear from Touraine and
La Vendée, and only here and there a piece. It was so peculiar, so
different from any and all the known styles, that no one could decide
whence it came or by whom it was made. The impression--and it was only
an impression--seemed to be that it must have come out of Italy, and
that Benvenuto Cellini was as likely as any one to have had to do with
its designs or execution; and this simply because he was known to have
stamped his peculiar taste upon works which might be classed with this
only in expressing the finer forms and decorations of the Italian
Renaissance.
A few pieces only of this ware came to light from time to time, but they
were eagerly seized upon, and they gave rise to much speculation. Why
there should be so few, and why no traces of like ware were found in
other directions, remained for a time a mystery. But it was solved. I
quote here from a paper by Mr. Ritter, which sums up what is now known
upon the subject; he writes with the knowledge and appreciation of a
practical potter:
"It was so late as the year 1839 that M. André Pottier, a French writer
on art, first announced to the world the existence of the singular
species of pottery now known as 'Henri-Deux' ware. He gave it as his
opinion that it was the production of Florentine artists working in
France. Until thus brought to the knowledge of connoisseurs, the very
existence of this exquisite ware had been forgotten. It soon, however,
became famous. Every corner of Europe was ransacked for specimens of it.
Dukes, princes, and millionaires, contended with the heads of national
museums for the few pieces still to be found. No ware ever yet became so
costly; for every hundred pounds that a rare piece of Sèvres or maiolica
will fetch, the 'Henri-Deux' will bring its thousand. As yet only about
fifty pieces have come to light; and of these fifty more than one-half
have found their way into the galleries of our wealthier English
amateurs.
"Those who see a specimen of this rare and precious pottery for the
first time are apt to be extremely disappointed. They see a vase, or a
ewer, or a candlestick, of fantastic shape, covered with a thin,
greenish-yellow glaze, the coloring not by any means brilliant, and the
surface seemingly inlaid and incrusted with the innumerable details of a
most elaborate ornamentation, made out in quiet browns, blacks, and sad
neutral tints. Nothing is less striking to a casual or an ignorant
observer--nothing in the whole range of decorative art so absolutely
exquisite in design and effect to the cultivated appreciation of a
connoisseur in Renaissance-work.
"No sooner was the ware discovered than speculations began as to its
maker, its date, and the locality of its fabrication. On no single point
did the ten or twelve French writers on the subject come to an
agreement, and a certain amount of unsolved mystery still attaches to
all these points. There is no so-called 'potter's mark' on any of the
pieces except one, and this solitary mark is not recognizable as that of
any known potter. It may be tortured into a monogram, or assumed to be a
device, at the pleasure of those who form their various theories on the
origin of the ware.
"The pieces are decorated with the arms of French royal and noble
families. One piece has on it the salamander surrounded by flames, the
device of Francis I. of France; and very many out of the fifty bear the
well-known monogram of Henry II. worked into the ornamentation of the
surface--a circumstance which has given the ware its name. The date is,
therefore, more or less fixed to the short period between 1540 and 1560,
or twenty years. As to the nationality of the artist, the best
authorities join in thinking he must have been a Frenchman, because the
work is essentially of the style of the somewhat distinctive French
Renaissance then prevailing. The precise locality of its production
could only be inferred to be somewhere in Touraine, because a majority
of the pieces can be traced as coming from that province.
"Such was the mystery which hung about all connected with this curious
ware--a mystery which not a little enhanced the interest taken in it,
and perhaps the estimation in which it was held.
"This mystery is now, to a great extent, cleared up.
"At the court of King Francis lived a widow lady of high birth, named
Hélène de Hangest. Her husband had been governor of the king, and
Grand-Master of France. She was herself an artist, and a collection of
drawings by her of considerable artistic merit is preserved. They are
portraits of the celebrities of the period. She was in favor at court;
the king himself composed a rhymed motto to each of her portraits, and
some of these verses are written in his own hand. It is established that
Hélène de Hangest set up a pottery at her Château of Oiron, and that
Francis Charpentier, a potter, was in her employ. To his hand, under the
auspices of the Châtelaine of Oiron, is due the famous ware of
'Henri-Deux.'
"Mr. J. C. Robinson gives it as his opinion that the technical merit of
the 'Henri-Deux' ware is very small. With due deference to Mr.
Robinson, who, as a rule, writes well and learnedly upon this and
cognate matters, we do not think he would say this if he had been able
to appreciate the subject from a potter's point of view. The _body_ of
the 'Henri-Deux' ware is of admirable texture and quality; the mode in
which the various clays are incorporated into the substance of the
pieces without shrinking or expansion, the clearness, thinness, and
smoothness of the glaze--which, by-the-way, is plumbiferous--all these
things are so many marvels of skillful manipulation, and fill the mind
of a practical potter with admiration."
These curious and interesting facts were brought to light by the
researches of a French _savant_, M. B. Fillon, about 1862.
[Illustration: FIG. 78.--_Henri-Deux Faience Vase._]
It appears that this ware was not made for sale, and that it was not
sold, but was made for presents, and therefore was produced only in
small quantities. The clay itself is what the French term _terre de
pipe_, and what we know as pipe-clay--a white, delicate, and very light
clay. The inlaying, or the incised lines which are filled with colored
clays, are most delicately cut, and so much resemble work done by
book-binders that some persons have suggested that they were made with
the tools used in the bookbinder's trade. At any rate, one should give
these pieces a close look, for any thoroughly good piece of work is a
source of supreme satisfaction. Admirable copies have been made of some
pieces of this work by an artist named Toft, which were exhibited at
Philadelphia in 1876 by Minton, of England.
[Illustration: FIG.
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